


What Power Compels the Ebb and Flow of Restless Ocean's Swells

by akathecentimetre



Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester, Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Adriatic Campaign, Barbary Coast, Crossover, Eighteenth-Century AU, Gen, HMS Lydia, Islam, Napoleonic Wars, Naval Battles, Period Typical Attitudes, Piracy, Slavery, The Bow Street Runners, The Folly, gender-bending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-02-01 18:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12710886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: “I beg your pardon, sir?”“A magician,” Rear Admiral Pellew said again, no less firmly than before, his intellectual brow beetled with concern which, Hornblower felt, was not all due to the muddled state of his favored subordinate. “He will join you on boardLydiafor your foray into the Adriatic, Captain.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgarthanGuide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgarthanGuide/gifts).



> Brought to you by a) a fantastic prompt, b) the fact that Paul McGann [everyone's favorite Lieutenant Bush] is also the facecast for Nightingale for a lot of people in the _Rivers of London_ fandom, and c) I don't even know. I have lots of plans for Walid in Barbary. Hope you enjoy this taster - more to come!
> 
> This whole fic is set in 1807, in the missing year(s) not portrayed in the _Hornblower_ books between _Atropos_ and the events of _Beat to Quarters/The Happy Return_.

*

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

It was not often that Captain Horatio Hornblower, recently of HMS _Atropos_ and newly-commanded to the captaincy of His Majesty’s frigate _Lydia_ , found himself at a loss for words. Wondering which words to say, or when, or how – that was a frequent struggle, oft-surrounded by a swirl of eddying thoughts that gave his mind little restful peace.

But being utterly lost for words? That was rare, and quite unpleasant, and the fact that his confusion had been dealt to him at the hands of a man whom he not only admired, but whom he had always thought manifestly sane, wasn’t helping.

“A magician,” Rear Admiral Pellew said again, no less firmly than before, his intellectual brow beetled with concern which, Hornblower felt, was not all due to the muddled state of his favored subordinate. “He will join you on board _Lydia_ for your foray into the Adriatic, Captain.”

“I – excuse me, sir,” Hornblower stammered, acutely aware that it was in his best interests to lower his voice and not demonstrate any outward signs of alarm where he and Pellew, who was just recently back from the East Indies, stood in a corner of the Admiralty Rooms in Plymouth, their congratulatory glasses of sherry (poured after a fine series of wins in whist over Captains Marbury and Sampson) forgotten. “I am not familiar with what you mean by – that word.”

“Nor was I, until recently,” Pellew said, shaking his head. “Harvey apparently had one on board _Temeraire_ at Trafalgar, working his sorcery on the winds. I am told it is the only reason she didn’t luff up and take herself and the _Victory_ straight to the bottom before she even had the chance to grapple with _Redoubtable_ and _Fougueux_. At any rate,” he went on, no doubt noticing the spasm of distress that had crossed Hornblower’s face at the mention of the word ‘sorcery,’ “the Admiralty has occasionally commissioned one or other of this London rabble ever since the War of Jenkins’ Ear. To my ear they sound like a thoroughly disreputable company – a madman’s Royal Society at their best – but your orders will come to you, Captain, and I have no fear of your being able to effectively interpret them.”

It was no small amount of perturbation that Hornblower returned to the _Lydia_ where she lay at anchor that evening. She was still abustle with lanterns and noise even at that late hour as her officers continued the madcap work of outfitting her for sea; Hornblower spared what thoughts he could, as his jollyboat approached her side and his coxswain Brown hailed her to welcome him back, to how he would have to row around her the following morning to inspect her trim and how her growing cargo was settling her in the water, and to the problem of making sure enough coffee was acquired for his personal stores to keep Polwheal in good stock – but found himself returning abruptly to the strangeness of the task that was to be set to him when he arrived to find that his orders were indeed waiting for him, packaged in heavy Admiralty linen, in the chaos of his cabin.

 _You are therefore directed and required_ , the orders said, after a brief outlining of the military situation in the Adriatic Sea, _to receive on board Thomas Nightingale, Esq., and whatever other passengers may accompany him –_

There followed a lot or ordinary Admiralty language about extraordinary, very un-Admiralty notions – including the suspected existence of a ‘practitioner’ of the supernatural who was currently running amok in the Adriatic at the service of the King of Italy. Nightingale, Esq., and his chosen companions were therefore to be given every accommodation and resource they might require to ensure that this hostile actor, who had apparently violated some ‘agreement’ of war which Hornblower had never heard of, let alone thought could be possible, was either captured or killed in aid of the British blockading fleet’s efforts to cut Bonaparte’s supply lines into Illyria.

“Pass the word for Mr Bush,” Hornblower called, and spent the moments before his first lieutenant arrived carefully reading the orders four times over to ensure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him; a few minutes later Bush entered in a clatter of boots and damp shoulders – a brief squall of rain must have passed over _Lydia_ where she was gently meeting the surf – and smiled at his captain, his quiet delight at being reunited with Hornblower and having a ship to beat into working order plain in his expression.

“Ah, Mr Bush,” Hornblower said hesitantly, gesturing for the lieutenant to sit in the listing chair that was on the opposite side of his table. “I would appreciate your opinion on the orders we have received – or at the very least, you must be made aware of their contents.”

“Indeed, sir?” Bush said, frowning; though Hornblower knew Bush expected some measure of confidence from a friend and superior of such long standing, he was also well aware of the strangeness that was a captain seeking advice on how to implement his orders before a voyage had even begun. “I trust we could never be set on a path that would be beyond your capabilities, sir.”

“That’s very handsome of you to say, William,” Hornblower said, made irritable and informal by his predicament, “but this is quite different. We are to welcome a – some sort of – _wizard_ on board this ship, Mr Bush.”

Bush’s face was easily read, and to Hornblower’s surprise, his own astonishment was not precisely mirrored there; instead Bush merely looked uncomfortable.

“You know something about this class of man, Mr Bush?” he asked sharply.

“Well, sir,” Bush said, with a small shake of his head, “I can’t say that I _know_ anything of them. But of their existence – yes, I have to say I do, sir. My uncle had several sons, sir, and one, showing an aptitude for his grammar, was sent down from Chichester to their establishment in London.”

The discovery that said cousin of the Bush family and all its sisters was, in fact, this exact Thomas Nightingale swiftly followed. Bush’s solid demeanour at this news didn’t change overmuch, though Hornblower was sure he caught him muttering something helpless under his breath about how the whole thing sounded most unnatural; in the end, as the bells rung on deck to make note of the fact that night had passed into morning, Hornblower wearily sent Bush back to his watch, read quickly through the orders for a final time – making note of the fact that even before he was due to arrive in the Adriatic, the _Lydia_ was also commanded to make efforts to suppress Barbary piracy along the north African coast – and only crawled onto his cot at three bells in the middle watch, with his steward Polwheal still industriously unpacking around him in the dark.

He rose again as the forenoon watch began, and had himself rowed out far enough that he could comfortably observe _Lydia’s_ tilt in the water in the early morning, autumn light; his recommendations for shifting some of the cargo aft to better seat her mainmast kept the sweating hands busy throughout the rest of the morning, only haphazardly watched over by her young and eager midshipmen and the ropes of Matthews and his master’s mates (Styles having been shunted sideways into gunnery, for Hornblower had decided, if he could meet the responsibility, that Styles was the sort of man best placed as close to armaments as possible). Bush reigned over all with strict and rising discipline, his bellowing voice cracking with fatigue, and it was a deck in need of sanding and painting, but nevertheless a full ship, which greeted Hornblower as he came out from his cabin during the dog watch to find his jollyboat skipping over the harbor towards them, Brown at the cox, with what had to be their unwelcome guests.

“Smartly now, Mr Bush,” he said sideways, and Bush acknowledged him, hurrying forward to ready the sideboys and marines for a contingent headed, Hornblower had been told, by a man whose accomplishments in the company of his own profession rated him the respect of a post-captain in His Majesty’s Navy.

He would be the judge, in time, of whether that respect was truly warranted, Hornblower thought sourly as a rope was lowered to start swinging on board what looked like an inordinate amount of luggage in chests, boxes, and canvas bags.

They were on deck suddenly, four of them. Hornblower could see the family resemblance as what had to be Nightingale shook his cousin’s hand in greeting; he had Bush’s coloring and the same firm, blue-grey gaze, but besides that they were clearly very different men. Nightingale had the complexion and tailoring of a gentleman, his pale visage and immaculate frock coat a stark contrast to Bush’s weathered, tanned face and careworn uniform, and the hand he presented to Hornblower had no callouses that betrayed physical work on its palm. He carried a heavy silver-topped cane, though his step was steady. Behind him were three other passengers whose appearance quite alarmed Hornblower: one appeared to be a maroon or a free black of some sort, his dark hair close-cropped, and the other young man was small and slight, blond, and had a suspicious, roving eye; both of them were dressed similarly but not as neatly as their master. Worst of all, perhaps, was the milk-pale woman who had followed in their wake, apparently a servant, who with eyes downcast was going about pushing and pulling the group’s belongings into order in such a way that conveyed an unusual bodily strength.

“Come aboard, sir,” the wizard said politely, handing over a folded and sealed letter which Hornblower assumed must have been his orders. “And might I present my apprentices – Mr Grant, and Mr May.”

The black youth grinned widely, his eyes glittering with interest; the blond looked insolent. Hornblower, sensing Bush’s embarrassment behind him without even looking at the man, felt the distinct sensation of a headache starting to build behind his eyes.

“Ha-h’m,” he said, pocketing the orders without opening them. “Yes, very well. Get us underway, if you please, Mr Bush,” he added in more of a shout to cover his confusion, turning away from the bedraggled little group at the rail. “I should not like to miss this wind.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Bush said, sounding relieved, and hurried to the quarterdeck to start bellowing orders at Gerard and Clay. In the bustle and clamor which followed, in which their unexpected guests were hustled unceremoniously below decks by a crowd of suspicious, unhelpful hands, it was almost possible to believe that there was to be nothing out of the ordinary on this particular journey to the Mediterranean.

Almost.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Edmund Halley's poem For the Principia (1687). Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Small warnings** in this chapter for discussion/mention of slavery as part of Peter's heritage and otherwise, off-screen character deaths, and a few snarky insults thrown here and there.

*

The _Lydia’s_ run down to Ushant and the Cape of Finisterre began promisingly, but the gale put paid to Hornblower’s hopes for an easy start to the journey. It blew in at five bells in the first watch, turned the still-warm sky black and blue, and sent Hornblower, miserable and retching with seasickness, to the windows of his cabin, where he was due to stay for much of the following forty-eight hours. It was as much as he could do, every watch or two, to take an unsteady turn on the quarterdeck to confer with his junior officers as to the wisdom of taking in or letting out reefs as the _Lydia_ clawed her way back eastward against the rain and wind. During one of these brief periods of effort, Hornblower at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not, after all, embarrassingly alone in his agony; it seemed Mr Nightingale, too, was ruing his decision ever to take to sea, if his drawn, white face was anything to by as he staggered up the taffrail to inquire as to their course. Hornblower took a savage, indecent sort of pleasure at the disarray of a man whom he would quite happily have left behind, if he were to be so weak as to not enjoy the sensation of the _Lydia’s_ heaving and running over the waves.

On the whole, it was with a certain relief that Hornblower avoided the question and nature of his guests for as long as possible, or at least until the gale was starting to clear, until his stomach was likewise becoming calm, and until the galley was sufficiently restored to the neatness and efficiency that would be required of it were Polwheal to serve up more than a cold meal. On the third day out from Plymouth, Hornblower emerged on deck to find the signal flags flying; young midshipman Clay, screaming down from the mizzentop over the still-gusting breeze, said he could see the topsails of several of the ships blockading Brest through his glass, and the brief exchange of flags and positions and news reassured Hornblower that they were as close on course as could be expected, and making good time.

“Well done, Mr Bush,” he said, loudly enough that the exhausted junior officers and men who had continued to stand by in case of a change of course or sail could hear him. “Send the hands for a hot dinner, if you please. They’ve earned it.”

The interlude of good cheer and brisk chores being carried out on the maindeck which followed lifted Hornblower’s own spirits, and made him think himself capable of facing the intellectual task at hand. “Mr Gerard,” he called, and when his second lieutenant approached he nodded down the gangway. “Run below and give Mr Nightingale my compliments. I would be honored if he and his apprentices would join Mr Bush and I for dinner in my cabin.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Gerard said, and hurried off with a degree of equanimity which reassured Hornblower that the steady, clearly capable young man was not offended by the omission of himself or the _Lydia’s_ other officers from the invitation.

Before he had the chance to descend and give his orders to Polwheal for the table, however, he became aware of Mr Savage hovering nearby, a question visibly on his face. “Yes, Mr Savage? Spit it out, man, don’t look like I’m about to bite you,” he said, not unkindly.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Savage said shyly, “but it’s on the matter of stores. I understand – that is, sir, I would suggest you don’t ask Mr Polwheal to serve that lamb you had brought on board.”

“Whyever not?” Hornblower said, most put out at the idea of not being able to offer – or enjoy – the fresh mutton he had particularly ordered for his table. “What’s wrong with the animal?”

“Dead, sir,” Savage said bluntly. “Most peculiarly. We had Polwheal butcher it for the wardroom last night, sir, begging your pardon, to keep it from going off, but – the meat was all wrong. Not a drop of blood left in the blasted thing. Like it had been ex – hexsang – whatever that word is that means drained, sir.”

“Most peculiar indeed,” Hornblower echoed, thinking furiously. “Thank you, Mr Savage.”

“Yes, sir,” Savage said, and rapidly hurried away, with his ears burning, to look busy supervising a few hands who were skylarking at the base of the mainmast. Grant and May, the two young wizards, were with them, Hornblower noticed; they seemed to have made it through the gale unscathed, with their eyes bright and cheeks flushed with the exercise of keeping their new sea-legs on the creaking deck.

“Blast,” Hornblower muttered, and finally made his way below decks.

The hours until dinner passed slowly. Hornblower took his turns down the quarterdeck at last during the first dog watch, grateful to be able to stretch his legs and his mind without fearing that he’d lose both in the storm. When he came into the air, it was to the sight of Mr Bush and Mr Nightingale taking their own turns at the opposite end of the deck; they both nodded to him, but soon left him in peace to continue on with what seemed to be an animated and affectionate conversation. The sight of them did Hornblower good; knowing what he knew of Bush’s home life in Chichester it made good sense that the cousins would take pleasure in being reunited. Nightingale, too, seemed to have recovered from his illness and gained sea-legs of his own, walking as he was with his hands clasped thoughtfully behind his back, fiddling his cane between his fingers.

It was a relatively splendid meal that Polwheal eventually managed to prepare for the company that met in Hornblower’s cabin at eight bells; the steward had managed to winkle out tongue and sizzling beef from the hold, the freshest biscuit, and several bottles of Hornblower’s private store of Madeira for the table. Grant and May fell upon the meal with all the ravenous eagerness of the young; Hornblower, meanwhile, was surprised to see as he, Bush, and Nightingale sat down that the wizard’s pale maidservant was gliding into the cabin behind an unnerved-looking Polwheal, doing her part to set out the pewter plates and cups.

“I’m not sure I’ve been introduced,” Hornblower said cautiously to Nightingale. “You must know, sir, that it is generally considered unacceptable for anyone to enter the captain’s cabin unasked.”

“Of course, sir, I understand,” Nightingale said, and with a brief sideways glance from him the woman gave a brief curtsey and glided silently away again. “I can assure you that Molly is harmless enough.”

“She is your – servant?”

“She does for us,” Grant said under his breath, as though it were some great joke, and May quietly sniggered.

“A ward, you might say, sir,” Nightingale said, with a warning glance at his apprentices, who fell abruptly silent. “She has served the Folly for many years. And should you choose to make use of her services she would be a most helpful companion to your steward, if you so desire.”

“Ha-h’m,” Hornblower said, not bothering to hide his discomfort at the idea of a woman, even a servant, running amok on the ship, either inside his cabin or within the reach of any untrustworthy hands (and he knew every hand had the potential to be untrustworthy around even as strange a woman as Molly, particularly as the voyage would wear on). “A very kind offer, Mr Nightingale. I shall give it due consideration.”

“You honor me,” Nightingale said lightly, tipping his glass.

“Mr Nightingale was telling me that he was on board the _Temeraire_ at Trafalgar, sir,” Bush said, to fill the pause in conversation that naturally followed. “Present at Nelson’s death, he was.”

“Come now, William,” Nightingale said, shaking his head. “I have told you twice already – I refuse to have you stand on ceremony with me, cousin.”

“As you wish,” Bush said, grinning. “At any rate – Thomas has said that he would like to offer you a demonstration of his skills, sir.”

“Indeed?” Hornblower said slowly; his skin abruptly crawled with excitement. “I have to confess, sir, that that has been on my mind ever since we left port.”

“To assure yourself that I am not a masquerading madman?” Nightingale said, with a small smile. “I do not doubt it – no, nor do I take offense,” he added quickly, as Hornblower began to protest. “Newtownian magic is not a common phenomenon to be seen, even in London. I would doubt _your_ capabilities, sir, in fact, if you did _not_ demand evidence.

“Fortunately the proof is easily produced,” he said, and then he turned his palm upwards in front of him, and conjured light.

Hornblower stared. It was a beautiful thing – a shimmering, gently-rotating sphere of brilliant white-blue that reminded him of a droplet of sunlit seawater hurled into the air, like the spray splashed up by a ship’s bows in fine weather. The rest of the cabin, even the candles on the table, seemed to dim in the face of it; above them the deck creaked and shuddered, and Grant, who had been watching intently, looked up and frowned.

“God bless my soul,” Bush breathed.

“We’ll have to watch out for this,” Grant said to May. “We can’t be causing damage below decks.”

Nightingale looked at his apprentices, and then closed his hand, and just like that, the light was gone and he was sitting back in his chair as though he had been doing nothing more extraordinary than serving himself another glass of port. “That is the identifying skill of a practitioner, gentlemen,” he said calmly. “A werelight. You can rest assured that I do not propose to practice any other methods on this voyage until they are needed.”

“I’ll be damned,” Bush blasphemed again. “Quite extraordinary.”

“Thank you,” Nightingale said, smiling. “I could say the same of any common sailor I have seen aboard this ship who drags themselves up those horrid halliards. I would be quite overcome. So you see, Captain,” he continued, addressing himself again to Hornblower, “our profession is as regulated as any other, though necessarily quite rare. I shall endeavour to continue my instruction of these young layabouts while we are at sea, but always in private.”

Hornblower took a gulp of his wine, coughed, and stared again, becoming more and more acutely aware of the need to say something that wasn’t simply an outpouring of astonishment and childish glee.

“Tell me then, sir,” he eventually said, and quietly congratulated himself on how he was able to keep his voice steady, “about this establishment of yours in London. I was given some impression that it was a sister-house of the Royal Society.”

“Not quite,” Nightingale said, shaking his head, “though we share some of the same titans of discovery. Sir Isaac’s influence on both institutions was immense – indeed formative. But our empiricism stems from other sources than the esteemed gentlemen of the Society, and the tasks we are set are more proactive than the mere collection of knowledge.”

“Tasks such as?”

“We’ve become officers of the King’s Peace, most recently,” Grant said, breaking in on the conversation with an easy, free manner which rankled at Hornblower’s sense of decorum – it was hard to begrudge the young man his enthusiasm, however, and his expression fairly shone with intelligence. “The men at Bow Street have made frequent use of our skills.”

“Bow Street,” Hornblower said questioningly, his poor knowledge of London showing him up.

“Thief-takers,” Mr May said; his voice was high and thin, and his grin had something predatory about it. “The Runners have been chasing down the city’s criminals for decades under the old brothers Fielding. Nowadays we help them when their poor plods can’t see the wood for the trees in front of their eyes.”

“Thank you, Mr May,” Nightingale said dryly.

“And from whence come your apprentices?” Hornblower asked, sensing the need, as any captain jealously did, to know exactly whom it was he had on board his ship. “In the Navy, we frequently make the best hands out of jailbirds.”

May’s eyes widened, and Hornblower could visibly see the young man debating whether he would take up the challenge of Hornblower’s insult. In the end, common sense and the awareness of Hornblower’s rank won out, and the apprentice lapsed into a sullen silence.

“Mr May came to us from Essex,” Nightingale said cautiously, “and has always been an impressive autodidact. Mr Grant – ”

“Haiti,” Grant said, speaking for himself. He was grinning at Hornblower and Bush as though defying them to try and speak to him as Hornblower had done to May. “My father played in the marine band of the frigate _Marseille_. Finest cornet player in the Indies.”

“Your mother was a slave, I take it?”

“No longer, sir,” Grant said, his grim smile growing. “She has taken ship for Freetown.”

“I congratulate you,” Hornblower said, bowing his head. “Haiti, eh? We had a spot of bother there, myself and Mr Bush, many years past – though on the Spanish end of the island. I trust you are not a revolutionary?”

“I was but a child when Dutty Boukman gave the signal to revolt, sir,” Grant said slyly, his obvious knowledge of the slave uprising’s earliest beginnings belying his words. “Whatever my inclinations, I can assure you I have no love of the French.”

“I suppose that will have to suffice,” Hornblower muttered, feeling altogether uneasy.

“I wonder if we might discuss the nature of our orders, sir,” Nightingale interjected, no doubt catching sight of the frown on Bush’s face, and the tension of his apprentices’ looks. “I appreciate that this voyage is not at all what you could have expected from the Admiralty.”

“Indeed it is not,” Hornblower said, with much relief; he found himself appreciating Nightingale’s tact even as the man’s mere presence provoked irritation. “You may find yourself at your ease for a while before we reach our destination, however, sir – we are bound for Barbary before you are to have a crack at the Adriatic.”

“So I understand. In fact,” Nightingale said, with a touch of apology, “I knew of those orders before they were written. It was thanks to my intervention at the Home Department that you have been ordered to Algiers.”

“We are to take on the privateers, then,” Bush said, his eyebrows rising. “The slave-raiders, I take it? But what interest could you possibly have there?”

“The retrieval of friends and colleagues, William,” Nightingale said, accepting with a nod Polwheal’s bustle at his elbow, refilling his glass. “Two years past, a ship outfitted by the Folly – at great personal expense, I might add – the sloop _Jaguar_ , was captured on its way to Alexandria. On board were not only a crew that had dedicated their careers to the needs of our society, but one of the finest medical minds in London. Since we were bound for the Mediterranean in any case, I importuned the Home Secretary to persuade the Admiralty that the sight of a frigate in Barbary waters would prove a most effective deterrent to the pirates’ continued activity – and if you are able to take prizes, Captain, I understand that would be of obvious financial advantage to your crew.”

“We will certainly do our best, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower grumbled, knowing he was chafing slightly, again, at the clear implication that Nightingale held more power over the _Lydia_ than he himself. “You have evidence that your people are alive to be rescued?”

“None whatsoever,” Nightingale admitted, a frown furrowing his brow; he looked very like Bush in that moment, their shared quizzical looks across the table proving almost amusing. “But I hold onto hope. And if you are able to find a way for us to disembark in Algiers itself in safety – I suspect the mere presence of the _Lydia_ will provide that security – I will negotiate for the return or ransom of what survivors there may be.”

“Ha-h’m,” Hornblower coughed. “The reach of your society surprises me, sir. In times of war I would not expect London scholars to be eagerly rushing about the world.”

“That is true. The Folly has always held itself apart from conflict, in the main.”

“So why now?” Bush asked, his mouth half-full of the remnants of Polwheal’s best attempt at a suet pudding. “Why magicians on board his Majesty’s ships?”

“Bonaparte did it first,” Grant said, with a shrug of his powerful shoulders; he and May looked far more relaxed now that the conversation had turned indubitably in the direction of the practitioners’ lives and craft. “Newtonian ideas spread fast to the Continent – the Ecole des Sciences Esotériques in Paris has always rivaled the Folly. And he’s been capturing every practitioner he could get his hands on as he’s marched across Europe. For all we know, the rogue magician in the Adriatic could be one of those men put to work – men like Sancerres or Heisenburg or Gabbiano. It’s gotten bad enough that – ”

The young man suddenly shut his mouth, and, with a flush rising in his cheeks, looked sidelong at Nightingale, whom, Hornblower was surprised to see, looked abruptly pale and coughed into his hand before speaking.

“We received news of the death of a colleague recently, gentlemen,” he murmured. “Not two weeks past. Mr Mellenby chose death over submitting to the French troops who crossed into Spain at Irun.”

The news had been all over Plymouth, of course, in the hurried weeks when Hornblower had been commissioned to the _Lydia_ : the opening of a new front at the Spanish and Portuguese borders after months of failed negotiations, the horrific spectre of a long peninsular campaign which would no doubt drain the British army of thousands upon thousands of men. He had not dreamt of _this_ sort of consequence – and, in truth, for a moment, Hornblower found himself put out and made uncomfortable by Nightingale’s obvious emotion, as Grant and May looked studiously at their empty plates and said nothing. Death was the central fact of war, after all; he had seen too many men, and too many boys, smashed into jelly on his quarterdecks to let the shadow of future carnage influence his thoughts overmuch, not only because it was a useless endeavour but because he knew that that way, depression and madness lay in wait.

He looked at Bush, certain that his red-blooded, fighting man of a lieutenant would share his sentiment; he was surprised, instead, by the frown of concern on Bush’s face that was directed not at Nightingale, not at his own flesh and blood, but at Hornblower. It was odd, suddenly, to look at Nightingale’s face, and recognize in it what Horatio had experienced when he had lost Archie Kennedy; and it was odd, suddenly, to remember the insistence with which Bush had entered what passed for the Hornblower family home in port, when he had come into the hot, stuffy little rooms where little Horatio and little Maria had lain dying, and hovered about his captain; how he had seen his captain lose, and lose again, and had been there to pour him obliviating drinks and to gently offer his arm to the elder Maria when she tottered and wailed in her grief for her children.

Bush knew what his captain felt when he suffered a personal loss, knew that he had _recently_ suffered such a loss, and in the absence of the long years of acquaintance that he had been robbed of where his cousin was concerned, he worried instead for his captain’s health when such a loss was again raised like a ghost before him. Hornblower felt a dizzying, almost painful wave of affection for his dependable Bush rise up in him then, and only remained silent with difficulty.

“We have neglected our books, Master,” came a sudden voice; it was May, who was peering at them all with a pained suspicion, as though he were not equipped to contribute to the wordless conversation that was hanging in the air. “Molly has only just been able to unpack them.”

“Quite right,” Nightingale said, more brightly. “My apprentices have their Latin to peruse, Captain, if you will release them.”

“By all means,” Hornblower nodded, and then the cabin was a bustle of activity – Bush, with a grasp of Nightingale’s hand and a salute to Hornblower, was due on deck for a brief watch before he turned in for the night, and the apprentices quickly vanished, running with a clatter and a yelp down the gangway to the wardroom, where they were no doubt going to get up to more mischief. Polwheal came in to clear the plates, and quickly retreated again, brushing crumbs off of the tablecloth onto the deck in his wake.

“I have not congratulated you, sir,” Hornblower said, as Nightingale was about to follow his fellows, “on the honor of your action at Trafalgar. I have it from the highest authority that your presence saved the _Temeraire_ and _Victory_ both.”

“Thank you,” Nightingale said, turning slightly back from the door to the cabin with a bow of his head. He was looking at Hornblower curiously, the melancholy not quite gone from his face; no doubt the recollection of the devastation that was visited on the _Temeraire_ in 1805, and the death of Nelson, so close by, still weighed heavy upon him. “Your authority might have exaggerated a touch – there was only so much I was able to do in the midst of such chaos. The gunners of _Temeraire_ did the lion’s share of the work that day.”

“Nevertheless,” Hornblower pressed, “I would debate with you further the implications of your technique. As captain I am tasked with being aware of and controlling every possible movement of this ship. I am uncertain as to the – worth, or the propriety, of allowing the forces of nature being tampered with in a way that will affect the _Lydia_ , never mind the dangers. I hope you will be able to satisfy me in time as to this point, sir.”

There was a gleam in Nightingale’s eyes; abruptly, Hornblower felt aware of some great, immense power being in the cabin with him, of the air quietly seething with strength.

“I’m afraid my answer will only feed your doubts, Captain Hornblower,” the magician said softly. “For you see – I did not move the winds that day. I do not believe any practitioner is capable of that, and I agree wholeheartedly with your warning against tampering with God’s forces.”

Hornblower blinked. “Then how – ?”

Nightingale’s smile was small and secure. “I did not move the winds,” he said again, just as calm. “I moved the ship.”

He bowed again in silence and left Hornblower alone with his whirling mind, desperate in equal measure for the clearing air of his quarterdeck, and for his bed.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, it's like this crossover was meant to be - Lord Grant as Hudnutt refusing to play the B-flat, anyone? Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

*

The weather continued fine as the _Lydia_ sailed down the French coast, keeping a watchful eye over its harbors and inlets and gathering what information they could about the placement of shore batteries and semaphore towers that could be conveyed back to the Admiralty. Two days after the fateful dinner that had changed quite a few of his previously-held conceptions about the world, Hornblower gave the order to strike out westward across the Bay of Biscay, swapping coastal views for open water; a few days after that, favored with a fair wind, the ship was skipping and frothing quickly down the coast of Portugal towards the Pillars of Hercules, her rigging singing with exactingly-maintained precision.

Hornblower could not but be pleased with the state of his ship: with her decks cleaned to a snowy white, the sails and spars new and her copper bottom fresh from the dockyard, she was handling easily and quickly, with little need to wrestle with any imperfections of form as she turned into or away from the wind. It was time, then, to proceed on to the maintenance of her crew, who were a decent but far from completely satisfactory mix of old hands and lubbers, and so it was that, as they cruised serenely south with Lisbon just over the horizon and not a Frenchman in sight, he gave Bush the order to put the crew through the exhausting and exacting practice at the guns that he knew his first lieutenant had been itching for.

The resulting few hours of crashing din and noise as Bush and Gerard put the crews through their paces – port and starboard batteries, upper and lower decks – was both glorious and gratifying. Grant and May, Hornblower saw, had fallen in mostly with the _Lydia’s_ midshipmen rather than her lieutenants, and did their best not to appear startled in front of their newfound friends at the horrendous squealing and smashing of the guns firing; they didn’t quite manage to maintain their composure for the first few broadsides, but Grant especially was watching or following Clay intently for the rest of the morning, asking intelligent and detailed questions about the working of each cannon and the systems of tackles and procedures that kept them in place. May, on the other hand, joined Nightingale in watching from the quarterdeck, his bright eyes fixed on the buoy the jollyboat’s crew was setting out in the sea for the latest round of target practice.

“Faster, if you please, Mr Bush,” Hornblower shouted down through the nearest grating. “An extra tot of rum to every man on the crew who runs out first, or capsizes that barrel!”

“Aye aye, sir!” Bush bellowed back, over the chorus of fierce cheers that greeted Hornblower’s announcement; the deck went quiet as the lieutenants and master gunners formed up the ranks of their crews, and then the rumble of the truckles started up again, building into a chaotic roar.

The ragged broadside was fast to come to completion, a much better time showing on Hornblower’s watch; nevertheless, he knew a collective groan was about to rise when the last gun went off and the barrel, for all that the sea had boiled around it, was still floating intact.

And then it wasn’t, suddenly, as in the distance it puffed out into jagged pieces of splintered wood and rapidly sank. Hornblower blinked as he heard the last gun crew start to celebrate, exulting in what must have been their shot – but surely the timing of the ball must have been very strange. Had some fool loaded a fused shell, rather than a cannonball, into their twenty-four pounder?

He looked sideways, and caught sight of Nightingale frowning. The magician was looking sternly at May, who, with a sneaky grin, was just then recoiling his small, empty hand from over the edge of the bulwark where he had been leaning.

“That’s enough of that, Lesley,” Nightingale said, quiet but authoritative. The apprentice looked appropriately chastened, but only for a moment, and was giggling to himself as he saluted Hornblower and made his escape down the gangway to the maindeck.

“The folly of the young,” Nightingale scoffed, though not unkindly, as he looked to Hornblower. “One can never get them to stop playing with fire. My apologies for the interference in your exercise, Captain – if you are not inclined to reward your guncrew after all, perhaps I might be allowed the honor.”

Hornblower did not have time to formulate an appropriate response to this astonishing discovery – if the magicians could wield flame, what untold dangers might his ship be in? – as, with a clatter and cheerful rise of voices, most of his officers emerged again on deck, leaving only Savage and a few others below to supervise the stowing of the guns and the clearing of quarters. Bush himself was quickly on the quarterdeck, flushed and grinning, his uniform coat discarded and his face half-blackened with soot; it did Hornblower good to see him so far into his element.

“Most satisfactory, I find, sir,” Bush said as he saluted. “I’ve sent a few landsmen who didn’t manage to get their toes out of the way fast enough to the surgeon’s mates. Otherwise, I have no fear they will continue to improve.”

“Very good, Mr Bush,” Hornblower nodded, feeling a touch sour at the reminder that they were sailing without the services of a fully-trained surgeon; he would have to inquire as to the availability of one to supervise the barely-educated mates when they reached the blockading fleet in the Adriatic.

“Good God, William, you look positively savage,” Nightingale said, shaking his head with a laugh. “You can’t mean to tell me you enjoy all that mess.”

“On the contrary, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said, feeling protective of his own. “You have the fortune of being related to one of the bravest terrors of the seas. I owe my life to him several times over.”

“Come, sir, you mustn’t build me up so,” Bush said as Nightingale looked at his cousin curiously; despite his protest, Hornblower could tell that Bush was delighted, as he ever was, when he was the object of his captain’s praise. “Your orders and quick action have been the saving of me just as often.”

“I can hardly count finding you among the dead as heroic,” Hornblower said, waving off Bush’s complaint. “See to yourself and the lieutenants, Mr Bush. The young men ought to make themselves presentable.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Bush said, and went off to the wardroom to get himself and the other powder-blackened officers cleaned up for the quarterdeck; in his wake, Hornblower found himself being stared at by Nightingale as though the magician had heard something most distressing.

“Are you well, Mr Nightingale?”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Nightingale said, shaking his head. “Has William suffered much injury under your command?”

Hornblower was offended for an instant before he remembered that, to anyone who did not have experience of his and Bush’s shared history, his attempt at nostalgic humor would indeed have sounded most alarming. “I certainly haven’t made a habit of allowing it, as his commanding officer. I referred to an incident when we were both lieutenants on board the _Renown_ – the inattention of an inadequate commanding officer led to a prisoner resurrection on board. Mr Bush was one of the few who was able to offer resistance, though by the time my own prize crew arrived to help even he had been overcome.”

Nightingale nodded, looking distractedly towards the bows. “It is a hard life you live on board these ships, sir. I regret that my long absence has rendered me incapable of understanding a kinsman’s life – though I also know, sir,” he said, more warmly, “that he is lucky to serve under so distinguished a captain.”

“You flatter me, sir,” Hornblower said dryly. “A former commander of sloops is hardly distinguished.”

Nightingale smiled. “I took out a subscription to the _Naval Chronicle_ after Trafalgar, sir. I fancy that I know of what I speak.”

“Ha-h’m,” Hornblower coughed, and, with a nod to the magician, turned to the stern rail in a manner which made clear the conversation was over. Nightingale took the hint, and went quietly below decks; in the next hour, as the ship calmed into its former equilibrium, Hornblower fancied he could hear the apprentices practicing Latin verb declensions aloud from the window to the wardroom.

The next morning dawned early and chilled, and the great hills of the Pillars of Hercules crept up on them silently as the sun rose. The Strait of Gibraltar was the busiest stretch of water they had yet seen on the voyage – at the narrow gap between Spain and Africa the channel was populated with both fishing and merchant ships plying their trade, the smaller coasters and cutters keeping close to the shore while the heavier vessels tacked their way out into the breakers of the Atlantic.

Nightingale had requested that he be informed when they sailed serenely into the Mediterranean proper; Hornblower sent Matthews to do so at six bells in the morning watch, and then looked on, incredulous, as Nightingale and Grant, both in their shirtsleeves, wrestled a sizable wooden crate up to the quarterdeck.

“Good morning, Captain,” Nightingale said, somewhat breathless, as Grant prised open the case – it was, to Hornblower’s surprise, full of tightly-packed bottles of what looked like very expensive, possibly even French, brandy.

“It is perhaps a little early for such an indulgence, sir,” he said, with Bush looking curiously on over his shoulder.

“For us, maybe,” Grant said, grinning. “But we’re not drinking it.”

“We have officially passed completely through the Pillars, sir? I have your assurance on that?” Nightingale asked, picking up one of the corked bottles into his hand.

“As I said,” Hornblower nodded testily. “I would not have sent for you if that were not the case.”

“Very good. I thank you for your promptness,” Nightingale said, with a small bow. And then, to Hornblower’s astonishment, he turned and threw the bottle, unopened, into the sea.

“What the devil,” Bush said, speaking Hornblower’s thoughts as he crossed over to the rail to watch as Nightingale and Grant went quickly about their work, tossing one after another of the flasks into the ocean, where they bobbed about forlornly. “Seems a damned waste.”

“Not if it secures a safe passage for the likes of us,” Nightingale said with a grin, brushing straw and the dust of the crate’s packaging off of his hands as Grant took care of the final few bottles. “An offering is usually the most expedient route to that happy end.”

“An offering to what?” Bush asked, flabbergasted.

“Rather to _whom_ ,” Nightingale said, but, with what Hornblower was becoming aware of was his usual inscrutability, he declined to elaborate – and by the time Hornblower himself stepped over to the rail, each and every one of the bottles had suddenly and mysteriously vanished below the water.

They stood in towards the north African coast over the course of the morning, but once they were conscious in the distance of the bustle of the shore traffic Hornblower ordered a course to the east-northeast, to beat their way slowly up towards the port of Algiers. He was not overly concerned with their speed of travel as he and the midshipmen spent much of their hours of daylight watching the shore through their glasses, as there was little to fear from any local ships – in fact, it would probably be to their benefit to scare the shoreline a little, and either dissuade any small privateers and slavers from setting sail or chase them into more dangerous waters when they saw that their paths towards home were blocked. Hornblower had to acknowledge a certain excitement as he examined the land and its ragged bays, followed by the brightness of its hinterland; he had never truly served in the Mediterranean, and its heat and the promise of action there stirred his senses.

He found himself distracted, in the long, sultry, almost windless afternoon, by the sound of quiet, delighted laughter coming from the tangle of rigging and decking around _Lydia_ ’s bowsprit as he took his slow turns along the maindeck. When he made his way forrard through the watchful, saluting hands who were about their idle work onto the fo’c’sle, he found, with a sort of weary surprise that he recognized as fundamental to this voyage – and which he felt was soon to disappear, because he couldn’t imagine what else could surprise him, anymore – that the apprentices had, almost certainly against the will of their Master, began to let others on board ship into the secret of their true natures. Midshipman Clay was sitting with Grant and May, his eyes wide and his laughter bright and wondering, as the two apprentices batted what looked like the flame of a lantern between them, spinning it in circles, swooping it in close to Clay’s head until he shouted his protest and slapped it away. They all three of them looked perfectly content, young and arrogant with it, and Hornblower couldn’t find it in him to reprimand them.

He mentioned the scene to Nightingale over dinner – he had invited the magician to his table in the hopes that he would be able to learn more about the theoretical powers his newfound society could offer him, and was promised the loan of a few books in both Latin (which would be useless to him, though he kept that fact quiet) and French (which would prove a painful, but perhaps fruitful exercise) – and he was somewhat gratified to see that Nightingale was also worried by the prospect of any more sailors running about with knowledge of their passengers’ skills, but he seemed at as much a loss as Hornblower as to what to do about it.

“Put it this way, Captain,” he said thoughtfully over the remains of his boiled mutton. “Would you prefer that your crew was acquainted with magic only when we are in the heat of battle? Superstition and suspicion are one thing – we are quite used to dealing with the effects of those attitudes towards our profession. My firing off a few _formae_ that will bring down rigging or turn an enemy’s vessel into a fireship without their prior knowledge, on the other hand, could have a disastrous effect on their morale or activities.”

So Hornblower was left with yet another headache – the question of how, and even more importantly _when_ , he would inform the rest of the crew of their mission. He had little doubt that information was leaking out in bits and pieces to the wardroom and the mess; Styles, he knew, for one, was giving the magicians his usual beady eye, ever-wary of strangers, and Matthews was, in the course of his duties, often taking advantage of the affection and respect Hornblower had for him to give him the sort of looks which told Hornblower that he had questions, and intended to be answered. For all that, however, he had detected no actual animosity towards the magicians from any member of the crew – Grant and May had been welcomed as much as they could be below decks, and he was not aware of any disrespect being offered to Nightingale. His necessary revelations could, perhaps, therefore be put off until after they had investigated what they could in the Ottoman Regency of Algiers.

Nightingale, in those days when they made their slow way eastward, had taken as much as any of the officers to balancing on deck with a glass, anxiously peering out towards the landscape. Hornblower suspected he was looking into every inlet in hopes that he could pick out some sign of the Folly’s lost sloop; it was a hopeless task at the distance Hornblower had decided to keep from the shore, but he had a sort of gentle admiration for the man’s dedication to his task, however naïve.

Nightingale was not on deck, however, during the late morning a few days later when, barely fifty nautical miles from the loop around the cape that would leave them at Algiers, the lookout in the mizzentop shouted that there was a two-masted ship ahead of them, a point off the starboard bow.

“That’s a privateer if ever I saw one,” Bush said as he looked through his glass; he handed it to Hornblower, who saw that the Turkish-style ship had two large square-rigged sails and rode low, but fast in the water; she seemed to also have oars shipped along her sides for ease of maneuvering, and even from a distance Hornblower could tell that her single deck was teeming with men, the sort of crew sized to grapple close and board whatever prey they chose.

“Quite right, Mr Bush,” he said, his lips twitching at the excitement of finally having a quarry to chase. “Let’s see if we can take her before she reaches the cape – beat to quarters, if you please.”

The clearing of the decks and the organized chaos below them as the gun crews stood to their stations and the powder monkeys ran to and fro with their powder and shot displaced the magicians up onto the deck, but once they had arrived into the scorching heat it proved to be a long wait. Hornblower paced and fretted through the early afternoon as the wind, fickle at last, failed to fill the _Lydia_ ’s sails and the slaver, with her long oars frantically beating at her sides, pulled further ahead; as the bells rang to start the first watch Hornblower ordered that the sails be wetted, which helped only a fraction. By the time the Turkish ship was within range of the _Lydia’s_ two bow chasers, dusk was about to come on, and Hornblower, gritting his teeth in frustration, fancied he could hear the cheers of the pirates floating back to them on the breeze as they managed to turn around the narrow spit of land at the northwestern entrance to the bay of Algiers.

“They’ll slip away after all, damn this heat,” Bush growled next to him.

“Then we shall certainly be here to catch them when they try to slip back out,” Hornblower said grimly. “Put a man in the waist to take the sound, Mr Bush. We shall anchor as close in to the port as we can manage without coming into range of any shore batteries.”

“Aye aye, sir. Mr Gerard!”

Bush and Gerard both went off to supervise the fidgeting crew at their unused guns, while Savage was detailed to have his division man the capstan at a moment’s notice. Hornblower looked as intently as he could through the quickly dimming light as the city of Algiers began to spread out before them to the south and west, the smell of smoke and haze discernable even over the water. The port itself was full with a veritable thicket of ships, the most notable among them being an absolutely enormous Ottoman galleon of a style Hornblower had only seen pictured in books – it was a momentous relic, perhaps built close to a century past and capable, judging by its size, of carrying a crew of over a thousand men. But even seen at a distance, she was clearly rotting where she lay in the water, a sight meant as a show rather than a proof of potential force, and the remainder of the many ships scuttling about the harbor were the same coast-huggers they had been crossing paths with since they entered the Med.

“There,” Grant suddenly said; he had been on the quarterdeck for hours with Nightingale and May, and was looking eagerly through a fine brass telescope which had come out of one of the magicians' many pieces of baggage. “That’s her, sir. That’s the _Jaguar_!”

Hornblower followed his pointing finger, and through his own glass saw what was undoubtedly an English ship nestled into one of the sandstone piers of the inner harbor, rigged in British style, and quite one of the best examples of a seagoing sloop he had ever seen. She was small, capable of carrying perhaps only ten guns, but with exceptional lines, and was painted in handsome shades of grey and white. Despite her obvious seaworthiness, however, he could tell that she also had been in port for some time – there were barnacles growing visibly at her waterline, attracting algae and indicating inactivity.

“I commend you, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said, without averting his gaze. “She is very fine; whatever the outcome of your negotiations, I suspect I shall give the orders necessary to send a party in to cut her out. And the fact that she is here can only be of comfort to you.”

“It is a start, at least, sir.”

“Mr Bush!” Hornblower called. “Let go the anchor, if you please, and take in the rest of our sail.”

Their arrival had certainly not gone unnoticed, Hornblower saw, as a flurry of activity began on shore, with men and longboats moving around the piers; the handsome tan buildings beyond them were ablaze with light as the sunset came on. One of the boats, Hornblower noticed soon after, with long, tall points at its prow and stern, was being rowed briskly out towards _Lydia_ , perhaps with a local emissary of the Ottomans on board, and Hornblower, snapping closed his glass, abruptly found that he was not entirely sure what he would have to say to them.

“Ahoy, _Lydia_!” shouted a voice from the boat. “Permission to come aboard?”

“Good God,” Nightingale said abruptly, and he and Grant started hurrying down to the side from the quarterdeck; Hornblower, who had been listening intently, could only assume that they were reacting to the fact that the man who had hailed, judging by his patterns of speech, was very clearly a Scotsman and not an Arab.

“Allow the approach, if you please, Mr Savage,” Hornblower said, and watched keenly on his way down to the maindeck as one of their visitors clambered up the side. He was a tall man, dressed in North African fashion, in a long-sleeved tunic with embroidery about its seams; his incongruously red hair was tangled above a draped scarf, and his teeth flashed white in his tanned face. Nightingale had instantly advanced to take his hand, and Grant looked no less delighted, clapping him familiarly on the shoulders with a broad grin of his own.

“Thank God for small mercies,” Nightingale was saying as Hornblower approached, the relief evident in his voice. He turned to Hornblower then, smiling. “Captain Hornblower, our voyage has already borne the very best of results. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr Andrew Wilson, of Harley Street.”

“Delighted, sir,” the doctor said, his soft Highland accent undoubtedly of good humor as he bowed over Hornblower’s hand. “Though I must correct Thomas on one item – my name these days is Abdul Walid.”

The two magicians instantly stilled. Nightingale just looked shocked; Grant, on the other hand, after a moment or two of visible struggle on his expressive face, let out a great shout of a laugh.

“You _didn’t_ ,” the apprentice crowed.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-da! Much more about Algiers coming up. (And a bunch more of your favorite characters along with it...) Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings** for this chapter: some not-so-subsumed Islamophobia  & sexism and some canon-era violence. This is also the least canon-tied part of the whole fic, I'm thinking, so I hope you enjoy it....

*

It was with a certain amount of trepidation that Hornblower invited the magicians and Wilson – or Walid, or whatever the doctor was calling himself – into his cabin to keep their conversation away from the nosy eyes and ears of the crew, leaving Bush on deck to watch the activities of the corsair-laden shore. May joined them, summoned by a running midshipman, and when Hornblower sat at the table in his great cabin it was with the somewhat forlorn thought that his voyage was about to become even more complicated.

“First things first,” Nightingale said anxiously, as May, too, gave his enthusiastic greetings to Walid. “How many of the _Jaguar_ ’s crew are still living, and in Algiers?”

“The capture of the ship itself included no violence – two of the able seamen are dead, however,” Walid said, shaking his head. “Outbreaks of plague here are more common than in England, and there was nothing we could do for them. The rest of us were sold on – sailing master Seawoll and his mates have been in the dockyards ever since, and their usage is acceptable even if the work is hard. I see them on occasion and have been able to tend to their health. My education gained me a better place; I was purchased into the service of the pasha-bey’s court, and my conversion secured me the freedom of the city some eighteen months past.”

“So it was a product of expediency, then,” Nightingale said, sounding a touch relieved, “this – acclimation of yours.”

“No, it was never that,” Walid said, not unkindly. “I appreciate the surprise you must feel that a godless man such as I once was has found Allah, Thomas, but I shall not be relinquishing my faith should I ever see England again.”

“If you do, there are those in England who would think you a deserter, sir,” Hornblower put in, his eyebrows raised.

“I am no soldier, Captain,” Walid said, more sharply. “I cannot be accused of being a traitor. These are not the days and times of Tangiers, when renegades were hanged as carrion for crows – nor should freedom of conscience be so rewarded under any circumstances.”

He looked at Hornblower more carefully, then, and smiled. “May I ask you, Captain Hornblower – how have you found it, living in close quarters with the miracle that is our magicians’ powers?”

Hornblower bristled. “I hesitate to call it a miracle,” he said stiffly. “Though I cannot deny that its strangeness is – proof of something otherworldly.”

Walid’s smile widened. “Then, sir, your imagination can no doubt stretch to acknowledging the power of revelation.”

“Ha-h’m,” Hornblower coughed, irritated to have his own words used against him to support another man’s transgression. “Be that as it may, doctor, our task here is to recover you and as many of the crew of the _Jaguar_ as we are able. Do you think this is possible?”

“There has never been a better time, nor a better opportunity,” Walid grinned. “Thomas’s presence here might as well be sent by Allah – the local population has suffered for months from a concerted infestation of _gh_ _ilan_ which I have no doubt he and Peter could disperse.”

“Ghouls, you say,” Nightingale said, intrigued, and next to Hornblower Peter was picking out Hornblower’s own naval copy of a map of the port of Algiers from the pile of charts on his table, peering at its harbor and narrow streets. “That does sound like something we can handle.”

“The pasha-bey is in residence in Algiers at this very moment, and knows me a little,” Walid continued. “His Excellency Ahmed ben Ali is a reasonable man – I have no doubt that if you were to do him this service, he would be willing to reward you with the return of at least some of the _Jaguar’s_ crew. I do not hope to speak for my own parole, given the position and duties I have been granted, but the master and his mates, at least…”

“We shall have to see how amenable the bey is to our entreaties, and our funds,” Nightingale said, frowning, no doubt displeased at the notion of leaving anyone behind once found.

“But surely,” Walid said abruptly, looking back at Hornblower, “the Royal Navy has not itself allied with the Folly solely to recover a handful of lost seamen and scientists?”

“Indeed not, sir,” Hornblower agreed, relieved to be speaking on his own authority again and to ignore the idea of ghouls being creatures made of flesh and blood rather than ink in the pages of children’s fairytales. “We are to sail for the Adriatic to aid our fleet in its blockade there, and to root out a – a practitioner who has made a mischief of himself. But I can see,” he added, as Walid’s face changed again, “that you must have had news of him here too.”

“Oh yes – news of his more terrible exploits has spread. He is indiscriminate in his choice of targets; even the fishermen here now do not dare to venture too far north in case he is on the prowl with the frigates he has been given by Beauharnais. He is known here as _rajul majhul alhuia_ ,” Walid said, frowning. “The Italian traders alike call him _l’uomo senza volto_ – the faceless one.”

“Well, that is hardly of much help,” Hornblower said, intensely irritated. “Have you heard nothing of his true identity?”

Walid looked quickly sideways at Nightingale, but he was clearly unready to come to any judgement. “I have my suspicions, but no certainty as yet, I’m afraid, sir.”

“Very well,” Hornblower sighed. “How do you propose we proceed with negotiating with the bey?”

“I would suggest you do not come on shore, sir, until your military expertise is required,” Walid said tactfully. “If I can secure an audience with Ali, I will send for Mr Nightingale; the efforts of private citizens and groups to ransom their loved ones or parishioners have often been more effective in the return of Englishmen home than those of the Crown, as I’m sure you know. If Ali is willing to engage our services in the eradication of the _gh_ _ilan_ , then perhaps you and your crew may be welcomed in the port.”

“But you shall stay here on board, surely,” Nightingale said. “You cannot intend to go back into captivity?”

“Even if I were not owned by the pasha-bey, my parole would still demand it,” Walid said, shaking his head as he looked out of the windows of Hornblower’s cabin at the quickly-gathering night. “In fact, I must make haste to depart if I am to keep to the conditions of my curfew, Captain.”

“By all means,” Hornblower said as he stood; at the incipient protest he could see building on Nightingale’s face, he quickly spoke again. “As one former prisoner to another, you must, of course, honor your parole as a gentleman.”

“Thank you, sir,” Walid said, with a brief bow. “I shall send word as soon as I am able – you may trust any messenger who brings a letter written in my hand, Thomas.”

With that, he turned to go out onto the deck, with Grant and May on his heels; Nightingale followed more slowly, and stood with Hornblower on the maindeck in the twilight as the boat that had brought Walid made its slow way back to shore in the still waters of the bay.

“Well, sir,” Hornblower asked, quietly urgent. “Can this Walid be trusted?”

An intense, but ultimately brief, war of emotion crossed Nightingale’s face before he regained his usual composure. “I cannot deny that this comes as a great surprise,” he said firmly, “but the man I know would no sooner betray the Folly’s interests than you would betray England’s, captain.”

“I find we are having to take a great deal on faith when it comes to your people, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said dryly. “In His Majesty’s Navy one comes to trust one’s fellows with one’s life very quickly, sir. I hope we can say the same of you.”

Nightingale said nothing, but acknowledged Hornblower’s demand with a stiff bow before he called his apprentices away from the side and took them below decks.

The next day dawned hot and dry, and a small bevy of boats made their way out to the _Lydia_ in the early morning light, mostly manned by Arabs who hoped to sell the skylarking, curious crew some of their local wares – bright bolts of cloth, fresh fruit and dates which Polwheal, Hornblower had no doubt, would be acquiring for the great cabin’s stores, and the usual assorted housewares which a tar from the lower decks would have no trouble selling on in England for a pretty penny. The long-prowed rowboat of the previous evening was also back in amongst the thicket of them, and a folded note was eventually passed up the side for Nightingale to peruse.

“His influence is most likely stronger than he claimed,” Nightingale said thoughtfully as he handed the note to Hornblower to read – it laid out the details, in a cramped, spiky hand which was apparently Walid’s, of an audience that the bey would allow to approach at noontime.

“I will send a man or two with you – unarmed, of course,” Hornblower said, already thinking of Matthews and Savage for the task. “Their eyes may see much that you do not.”

The group intended for the audience duly departed in the late morning: Nightingale and Grant, in their very best frock coats and each carrying a cane (or staff, Hornblower recognized, thanks to his faltering reading of the books Nightingale had lent to him), went down into the jollyboat with Matthews and Gerard at their heels in their dress uniforms, and Brown, at the cox, drove the rowing crew hard to take them out to one of the many piers, where, Hornblower saw through his glass, a crowd of attendants was waiting to walk them away into the brightly whitewashed town. May, left behind, was looking as uneasy as Hornblower felt as he watched them disappear through the gate of the city; it was prudent, Hornblower thought, to order Bush to keep half the hands at quarters, in case an attack were to be launched against the _Lydia_ when their guests were on land and helpless.

Their fears were to be unfounded, however, because the jollyboat came skipping back out towards the _Lydia_ not two hours later, with all of its passengers still in one piece and, Hornblower saw, even smiling as they clambered back aboard.

“Our negotiations were most satisfactory, sir,” Nightingale said happily to Hornblower and Bush as he came up to the quarterdeck. “If our mission this evening is successful the crew of the _Jaguar_ will be released to us, and the sloop herself has been repurchased at a fraction of her cost.”

“Well done indeed, cousin,” Bush said, surprised. “Were they really so cheap, or is their situation that desperate?”

“Perhaps a little of both,” Nightingale said evasively; behind him, Hornblower saw that Grant was rolling his eyes, and when he noticed Hornblower’s gaze he grinned and waved his hand in such a way which seemed to imply that some act of magic had, in fact, played a role in the conversation with the unfortunate pasha-bey.

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly in planning their excursion. Hornblower took charge of making sure his shore party was well-armed, and in writing his report of all that had befallen them so far for the Admiralty, as well as the sealed and weighted orders he would leave behind for Bush in case his first lieutenant had cause to believe him dead and had to take the _Lydia_ back out into the Med. Bush, as was his custom, was not at all pleased that his captain was venturing into potential danger without him by his side; Hornblower found a new sympathy within himself for his fidgeting friend, not least because it helped him avoid the task of listening in to the practitioners’ rambling and incomprehensible conversation, carried out with the help of several decades-old books in cracking leather bindings, about how to perform an exorcism or summon a demon, or how to use something called _aer_ as a shield in case the ghouls could spit fire.

Hornblower came close to wishing, longingly, that he had the time to sleep off the headache that he abruptly incurred when it was revealed that a North African ghoul, according to the magicians’ book learning, had the ability to shapeshift between the forms of a man and a hyena. Unfortunately for him, the sun was starting to set when this particular piece of information was revealed, and it was high time for the shore party to be off; as they pushed away from _Lydia_ ’s side, Hornblower looked up to find both Bush and Molly, the strange servant-girl, watching them anxiously from the rail.

They were met at the dockside by a small, slim figure – a woman, Hornblower was surprised to see – who was dressed in a beautiful, flowing tunic and trousers, her soft shoes embroidered with gold and silver threads. Her dark eyes looked at them all keenly over the covering of her headscarf as she handed Nightingale a note which the magician confirmed was in Dr Walid’s handwriting; with a wave of her small hand, she gestured silently for them to follow, and led them on a dusty walk through the streets towards the southern edge of the city and the half-green hills beyond them. Hornblower had not much of an impression of the city as they traveled through it, save that it was cramped and full of narrow streets brightly-lit by the slanting evening sun; busy traders who were packing up their wares and sailors alike hastened out of the shore party’s path, their eyes averted save when they took quick, astonished glances at the English sailors to appease their curiosity. Hornblower kept a hand on the butt of his pistol, and tried to the best of his ability to ignore the chatter and calling of Arabic and Greek phrases that cluttered the air around him, thinking for the first time in years of the claustrophobia of land and the sour memories he had of his own enforced imprisonment in Ferrol as a midshipman.

The woman led them, at last, to a small stucco villa on the outskirts of the city, nestled in under the wall that protected Algiers from the landscape beyond, where two Arab attendants were wrestling an elderly man in a wooden carrying chair out into the street; the old man’s leg was newly set in splints and bandages as he fell asleep where he sat, and Hornblower realized that he must have been the recipient of Walid’s care as they were brought up to the door.

“Is that you, Sahra?” Walid called from inside; as Hornblower stepped in and removed his hat, thick as its brim was with sweat, he saw that the doctor was cleaning his hands in a bowl of water inside the single room he must have used as home and surgery together. He looked up and smiled as Hornblower and Nightingale approached, nodding to the young woman who now had a name. “You are very welcome, Captain. Sahra and I will be ready to lead you outside the walls very shortly.”

“She is coming with us, then?” Nightingale said doubtfully, eyeing the young woman’s slight frame and henna-tatooed hands; Hornblower certainly harbored the same uncertainties.

“Indeed she shall,” Walid nodded. “Sahra has been a most helpful and talented assistant to me for the last year. And I would not challenge her if I were you, gentlemen,” he added, lower. “She is a descendant of the Nizari _,_ after all.”

“She’s an assassin?” Grant asked, his face lighting up with delighted comprehension. Sahra turned back to them at the sound of his voice, her eyes crinkling with mirth.

Hornblower, meanwhile, as the shore party crouched and lounged warily around the entrance to the house, keeping a watchful eye on the street, joined Nightingale in perusing the contents of Walid’s abode, which were, as those of the magicians’ baggage had proven to be, manifestly bizarre. Hornblower’s attention was drawn immediately to an enormous object standing in one corner, a full foot taller than Hornblower himself, which, he was amazed to find, turned out to be a single feather taken from some incomprehensibly enormous bird, richly golden-brown and as light as a folded letter. Walid explained, in between his packing a canvas bag with his surgeon’s tools, that it had been found in the desert not two miles away, one of many local proofs of the existence of a roc, a creature Hornblower had heard of only in the context of pseudo-Biblical bestiaries. Nightingale, meanwhile, had ignored the strange skeleton, intricate and unthinkable, that hung in another corner and was perusing Walid’s small collection of books, whose languages spanned the Mediterranean and beyond.

“But surely,” Nightingale said, turning to Walid in surprise with a copy of a richly-illuminated Arabic manuscript in his hand, “this looks like a practical manual. Have you actually attempted these spells?”

“Attempted – once or twice,” Walid said, looking over Nightingale’s shoulder as Hornblower joined them again. “But alas, we do not all have the touch for it, despite all my years of experience with the Folly. You will find that there is much magic here that lies outside the realms of Newtonian practice, Thomas. I recently met a _mukhannath_ from the eastern Horn who could set and heal bones in a matter of days, without speaking a word of incantation. Days, for a broken leg that would have otherwise turned gangrenous!” he sighed wistfully. “I tried to persuade her to give up her secrets, but her instruction was frustratingly vague.”

“Fascinating work indeed, sir,” Hornblower said, intrigued despite himself. “That knowledge would be of application the world over, if it could be harnessed.”

“You see, Thomas,” Walid said to Nightingale, “my habits are unchanged. I remain _abd-al haqq_ , the servant of the truth.”

“As if I could ever truly doubt it,” Nightingale replied warmly, with a shake of his head. “Though I rather get the impression you want to stay, An – Abdul.”

Walid smiled, but did not reply as there was another heavy knock at the door to the house; three more men shoved their way through the crowd of _Lydia_ ’s sailors to stand inside the doorway, presenting their obedience both to Hornblower’s epaulettes and Nightingale. May, who had been following the group in a studied silence up until that point, launched himself with an exclamation of delight at the oldest man among them, a bull-necked and grey-haired man who gave a gruff, pleased burst of Yorkshire-inflected greeting to the apprentice in return; with him were a shorter man with a swarthy face and halfway-sullen look whom Hornblower took to be Greek, and an enormously tall seaman, of about the same breadth and visible strength of Hornblower’s coxswain Brown, who looked tough and quiet under his shaved head.

“Sailing master Seawoll, master’s mate Stephanopolous, and gunner Caffrey, all accounted for,” Walid said with a grin. “Not long until liberty now, my friends.”

“I should bloody well hope not,” Seawoll grumbled as he shook Nightingale’s hand. “Where’re these creatures of yours, then?”

Ten minutes later, the entire shore party was making its way out of the handsome sandstone southern gate of the city, and into a wilderness of low hills, dotted here and there with scrubby grass and bushes. Night and the temperature were falling quickly now as Walid and Sahra, dressed in the same loose, dark clothing Hornblower had seen the Berbers of the town wear, led them through scattered outdwellings and into a series of narrow valleys and canyons; above them, the lights of the city were giving way to a brilliant profusion of stars.

Sahra had padded ahead of them, a half-curved scimitar at her hip – fifteen minutes after they left the relative safety of Algiers, she held up a hand to indicate that they should stop, and Walid turned back to Hornblower.

“This is the spot, Captain,” he whispered. “There is a graveyard halfway down this valley, and various townspeople have claimed that their children have vanished from this place.”

“Very well,” Hornblower murmured back, scanning the terrain as it spread out under the light of the few boat-lanterns his men were carrying. It was a larger ravine than the ones they had already traveled through, with gradually rising walls rather than the claustrophobic loom of cliffs on either side. “We shall ambush whatever we find from above. Mr Nightingale will take his apprentices and the _Jaguar_ crew up the eastern side; I will take you two and our shore party up the western edge.”

A muttered chorus of Ayes and nods came back to him; he ordered all but one of the lanterns to be doused as he, Matthews, Styles, and the _Lydia’s_ crew clambered up the hillside with Walid and Sahra at their heels.

“Matthews, there,” he called quietly as they settled in the dust of broken rock and sand. “Douse your light, and pass the word to make ready with pistols and cutlasses.”

In the relative silence which followed as the crew checked their powder and priming pans, Hornblower looked down to see that the valley was half-illuminated by a sliver of new moon. Nightingale and his group were only just visible in among the rocks of the far side, and then only because Hornblower had a rough idea of where they must have ascended; they had hidden themselves well in the shadows. Hornblower took a deep breath, his heart hammering with muted excitement.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” came a whisper at his elbow; it was Matthews, his frank eyes shining in the starlight, and with the great hulk of Styles at his side. “May I tell the crew what it is we’re expecting to hunt?”

Hornblower grinned sharply. “Tell them we are hunting monsters, Mr Matthews,” he said, raising his voice a hair so he knew that the sharp-eared crew would hear it from his own lips. “And that we shall bring the wrath of God down upon them.”

“Very good, sir,” Matthews said, audibly pleased.

“We’re gonna do wha’?” Styles said incredulously; he was swiftly shushed by Matthews, and they all returned to their silent vigil.

They did not have long to wait. Within minutes, a harsh, screeching cry split the air; Hornblower jumped before recollecting himself, and cursed his weak nerves as he looked down the valley. There was a crowd of large, light-footed, dog-like creatures entering the moonlight some fifty yards from them; as Hornblower watched, the monster leading them sniffed the air, and let out another horrible, cackling laugh of a sound.

“Hyenas,” Walid said quietly at Hornblower’s side. “Now we shall see whether they are anything more.”

“Make ready,” Hornblower said sideways, and there was a quiet shuffle and series of clicks as his men prepared their pistols.

One of the hyenas looked sharply up at them on the western precipice, suddenly, and, with a howl, it turned its monstrous way towards them. And as it started bounding up the hillside, Hornblower thrilled with anticipatory fear to see that its body was _changing_ – even as he watched, he saw that its grey legs were half like the brawny arms of a man, and that the teeth in its rabid mouth were both human and doglike. Its great yellow eyes, however, were entirely otherworldly, and he felt no compunction whatsoever in turning to the shore party and screaming that they should fire.

The first report of their guns was successful – the ghoul fell back, screeching, and at Hornblower’s shout to charge the _Lydia_ ’s men were quick to race down towards it and finish the job with their swords. From the opposite side of the valley, too, the attack had begun: the _Jaguar’s_ crew was careening down towards their foe, Caffrey having a massive boat hammer in his meaty hands, and above them, Nightingale came to a dusty halt and raised his open palm.

A great ball of light flew from him, rocketing up above them into the sky, and illuminated the valley like even the sun could not – several of the crowd of snarling, galloping ghouls stopped and shrieked with pain as its rays hit their nocturnal eyes. Hornblower watched for a moment more, staggered, as Grant and May flew into the fray, their hands outstretched, and this time their balls of fire were heavy and smoking, smashing into fur and legs and scorching the earth; after that brief glance, however, Hornblower found himself in the middle of the whole plunging lot of them, striking out with his sword at the stinking sides of the dogs. Sahra was beside him, her teeth bared as her scarf had slipped to reveal her mouth, stabbing and elegantly whirling, an immense strength apparent in the direction and force of her thrusts.

The fight was short and sharp, and not without casualties – for a brief instant, Hornblower caught sight of Walid with his hands under a protesting Styles’ arms, dragging him bodily away from the fight with his left trouser leg torn to red rags – no sooner had Hornblower fully committed himself into it, his blood singing and his teeth bared, than it was over. One or two of the ghouls attempted to limp away back into the darkness, howling, but Grant and May were quickly on their tails, and Nightingale, without a hair out of place or a mark or drop of blood upon him, came briskly up to Hornblower’s heaving side through the piled heaps of the hyenas.

“Are you well, sir?”

“Perfectly well, thank you, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said, calming himself. He looked back up at the globe of light which still hung above them, gently pulsing as it covered them all with white-blue light. “I commend you for your foresight, sir. Your illumination proved most helpful.”

“It tends to,” Nightingale said with a smile.

“Ruddy thing _bit_ me,” Styles complained volubly behind them, and Hornblower turned to see Matthews stolidly patting Styles on the shoulder as Walid quickly ripped up the remnants of his trouser leg with a knife. The wound he had received from the dripping teeth of the ghoul which lay dead by him looked ugly and deep, but Walid nodded with apparent satisfaction as he poured water over it from a flask from his bag and inspected the punctures, the skill in his hands obvious as he efficiently swiped away much of the blood and set to bandaging it with strips of cotton and linen.

“He will recover, sir,” he said as Hornblower came to stand above them, absentmindedly wiping blood from his own hands onto his clothes. “As long as infection does not set in, I do not anticipate any ill-effects.”

“What’s he saying?” the irascible Styles asked Matthews.

“Means you’ll be right as rain, you great lump,” Matthews said philosophically.

Hornblower remembered little of their return to Algiers, nor of the trip back to the _Lydia_ , before he fell, still mostly clothed and blood-spattered, onto his cot and slept the sleep of the dreamless, mercifully not thinking of the slavering jaws of the ghouls again until he woke with a start, quite refreshed, at five bells in the morning watch to find a near-frantic Polwheal tugging at his boots, anxious to recover what he could of his captain’s uniform before it could be blood-soaked permanently. Hornblower sent him away in a mock rage, grumbled his way happily through a bath from the pumps which, being made up of Mediterranean water, was deliciously warm, and came quickly up on deck in one of his spare uniforms at six bells to find Gerard in charge of the quarterdeck.

He had left standing orders for Bush and Savage to take a small crew from _Lydia’s_ complement over to the _Jaguar_ earlier in the morning, to make sure she was secured and not stripped of her rigging or other valuables before she was returned to her rightful owners; as he looked through his glass he could see that crew and what was no doubt the returning crewmembers of the _Jaguar_ herself swarming through her rigging, setting her mainsail to crab her way out of the bay.

“Very good, Mr Gerard. You may prepare to weigh anchor,” Hornblower nodded, and Gerard promptly obeyed, calling up both watches to set topsails and man the capstan. There was certainly a great commotion of farewell and protest occurring on the docks as the _Jaguar_ warped out into the bay which made Hornblower somewhat apprehensive – he fancied that he could see the slight form that was the woman Sahra standing alone at the end of the pier, watching the _Jaguar_ depart – but within half an hour both the sloop and _Lydia_ were making their serene way beyond the cape, and he could breathe a little easier as the _Lydia_ ’s jollyboat came beating back across the morning’s white-tipped waves from _Jaguar_ with Bush aboard, Savage having been left to help command the sloop alongside Seawoll.

Nightingale had joined Hornblower on the quarterdeck and was sharing coffee, served by a still-grumbling Polwheal, with him by the time the jollyboat returned; Nightingale looked fatigued, but still pleased with the events of the night, and was happy to discuss some of the finer technical points of his methods of attack, most of which Hornblower couldn’t understand, but was happy to appreciate as effectively military.

Bush was quick to make his way up the side, his pleasure at being underway again evident in his face; somewhat to Hornblower’s surprise, he was followed through the bulwark by Walid, who was still in his clothes of the previous night’s adventure and did not look like he had slept.

“I told him you had need of a surgeon, sir,” Nightingale said quietly, at Hornblower’s questioning glance towards him. “It was enough to persuade him to leave.”

“Was it, now,” Hornblower mused. “Very well, Mr Bush,” he said, nodding to his first lieutenant. “Have Mr Walid’s dunnage stored in the wardroom, and arrange with the purser to have him outfitted and read into the ship’s books.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Bush nodded. Walid, for his part, smiled at the magician and bowed his consent towards Hornblower before he followed Bush below decks to pledge his service.

“Well, sir,” Nightingale said, looking down the length of the ship as the _Lydia_ wore her course northwards. “I hope the next part of our journey will prove as successful.”

“I am becoming increasingly confident of it, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said, surprising himself with how genuinely he believed that sentiment.

No doubt he would regret it ere long, but for the moment he would hold onto that confidence, as the _Lydia_ , followed closely by the _Jaguar_ , made her way back out to sea. 

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been lax about making clear my historical references! Peter's background is based in the [Haitian Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution), that oft-forgotten but incredibly important child of 18th-century radicalism; David Mellenby's death as I've described it is wrapped up in the opening of the [Peninsular War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peninsular_War), which was infamously bloody and horrible (and also when&where the _[Sharpe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpe_\(TV_series\))_ novel series/show is based). 
> 
> This chapter relies heavily on the phenomenon of pirates and privateers from 'Barbary' - a stupid English catch-all term for various North African powers - who captured, it is estimated, over 20,000 Englishmen and women alone over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries to be put to work as slaves, along with many more Europeans (the English were a small minority of this group); if they had connections, some of these white slaves managed to be ransomed back to England or otherwise escaped, and many of these returnees subsequently published narratives - some Islamophobic, others not - about their experiences. (Ironically - or not, depending on your point of view - there were plenty of European raiders taking Muslim slaves to Malta, France, Genoa, Venice, the Papal States, and especially Spain during this period, too.) 'Renegades' were European former Christians who chose of their own free will to convert and join Muslim societies, or who did so while fleeing from criminal sentences in Europe. The impact of Barbary piracy and slavery was starting to die down by the period described in this fic, but efforts to suppress it continued - the Americans attacked Tripoli in 1804 as part of this effort, and a combined British-Dutch force [bombarded Algiers in 1816](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Algiers_\(1816\)) to flush out pirates there. Walid's Tangiers reference is about the fall of Tangiers, which was briefly an English colony in the 17th century, to the ruling powers of Morocco, during which the English hanged or enslaved some of their own people who had converted or threatened to convert to Islam. And one more note - _mukhannath_ is a pre-modern Arabic term meaning a man who 'lived as a woman,' i.e. perhaps the closest available contemporary concept to a transgender person. So there's your Lady Caroline. *g*
> 
> Linda Colley's excellent book _Captives: Britain, Empire, and the World, 1600-1850_ was of a lot of use to me for this chapter. Now on to the books about the Adriatic (physical oceanography is a bitch to read about let me tell you)...
> 
> (Apologies, also, if any of my translations of Arabic etc. are wrong - I'm relying on Google Translate and will happily accept corrections!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings** for this chapter: quite a bit of canonical violence. Both of these canons are pretty violent, remember. *s*

*

It took three days for the _Lydia_ , with the _Jaguar_ following closely at her heels, to sight Corfu and make the entrance to the Adriatic Sea. It was a relatively uneventful period, the fine weather broken only by an early evening squall of rain on the second day, as the water grew emptier the further they sailed from the southern coast. A few ships of reasonable size were sighted, but none dared come within reach of the _Lydia’s_ speed and guns, and the fishing vessels they encountered provided little news, but more pleasure in the purchase of buckets of mackerel and white bream to freshen up Hornblower’s and the officers’ tables.

Hornblower even, as he knew befitted the dignity of a captain of his rank – though he had never, as a junior officer, thought himself capable of such flummery – started to organize the social life of his great cabin as though he believed it worthwhile. A new routine of dinners with his passengers and his juniors, the younger of whom were at first overawed, and then made glad and easy, by eating with their captain made the ship feel lively and close-knit in ways which Hornblower could only appreciate. In the aftermath of dinner on the second day, an off-hand comment from Bush about his captain’s skill at whist even provoked a very creditable game which lasted well into the night, made up of Hornblower, Nightingale, Dr Walid – who was taking to his uniform and duties handsomely, if the newly spick-and-span organization of the infirmary was anything to go by – and Lieutenant Gerard as a fourth. Bush was obviously pleased not to have to match wits with his captain in such a way, having never been a skilled player, but stayed with them until the conclusion of the last dogwatch, cheering on tricks and rubbers taken as though they were battles to be won.

Perhaps most generous of him, Hornblower knew, was the morning coffee he now took with Nightingale at the conclusion of his early walks along the quarterdeck, and particularly whom he allowed to serve it. Molly, the Folly’s unsettling girl, had managed at last to persuade Polwheal to let her into the galley as a sort of equal, and into the various nooks and crannies of other cabins and the wardroom too; Bush had been heard to say more than once that his cabin, which he had been sharing with Nightingale since the start of the voyage, had not been so clean since it was first built. She was the one who glided silently up the stairs to serve them steaming china cups of Turkish coffee each morning, her balance impeccable on the tilting decks even as her eyes remained downcast. Nightingale was kind to her, and Hornblower, after his own fashion, attempted to be as well, though she never spoke a word in response – he could only assume that there was something not quite right about the girl, but as she did no harm, he saw no use in asking after what it was that made her mute.

On the third morning after Algiers disappeared over the horizon, the day was colder, and severely overcast; the dawn remained dark and grey, and Hornblower could not blame Nightingale for staying abed long past the time when Hornblower had finished his usual ruminations and turns along the deck, nor Molly for not appearing to serve him. He nodded to young Clay, instead, who was the officer of the watch, and remained alone on the quarterdeck, smelling the air and wondering whether they were going to have to make preparations for a storm.

“What a damned nuisance,” said a sudden voice beside him; Hornblower turned, startled, and just as quickly stilled, for there was another captain standing beside him on the deck.

“I beg your pardon?” he stammered, quickly cursing his own stupidity.

The captain was shorter than Hornblower by some inches, dark-haired and of a dark complexion, with heavy-lidded eyes and frowning eyebrows. His uniform coat and its two epaulettes were rumpled, as though he did not give much care to his dress, though there was intelligence and quickness in his face and hands, which were fidgeting with a glass.

He was also – if Hornblower’s eyes were not tricking him – entirely transparent.

“Damned nuisance,” the phantom said again, nodding outwards over the stern rail towards the darkest section of the sky with its threatening clouds. “That’ll make beating up past Corfu an exercise in futility today, you mark my words, sir.”

“I,” Hornblower said, and could think of nothing else coherent to say.

There was a steady step on the gangway to the maindeck behind him; Hornblower looked round to see that Nightingale was at last awake, and was coming to greet Hornblower as usual. He stopped short with his foot on the last step, however, as he saw what Hornblower was seeing, and his expression changed to one of intense observation.

“Best shorten sail,” the ghost-captain grumbled, now ignoring Hornblower entirely. “We shall have a long day and night of it.”

And with that, the phantom took three paces towards the port rail and vanished.

“Most impressive,” Nightingale said thoughtfully.

“Good God,” Hornblower burst out.

“Indubitably,” Nightingale grinned.

“I take it,” Hornblower said, and then he cleared his throat and tried again to stop himself from sounding like a shivering schoolboy. “Ha-h’m – I assume this was not a result of one of your incantations, Mr Nightingale?”

“Indeed not, sir,” Nightingale said; he had learned, Hornblower knew, to deliver any information about the occult in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone, and was doing it now, for which Hornblower could only be grateful. “Ghosts are a relatively common phenomenon, though being able to discern or converse with them is not. Though I must admit, I am surprised to see such a palpable presence on board.”

“And why is that?” Hornblower asked, intrigued despite himself, clutching onto the conversation as a method of regaining his calm.

Nightingale considered for a moment before answering. “The science of understanding ghosts is an inexact one, sir,” he began. “I cannot tell you, nor can any of the many so-called authorities on the matter, why a particular being chooses to remain in some form upon this earth after death, nor could I tell you precisely what it is they cleave to, or how it is they remain. There are other remnants of magic, however, which can reveal the general history and memory of a place and time, or give proof of a practitioner’s work. They are called _vestigia_ , sir – though as I said, I did not expect, before I first joined a naval expedition, to experience it on board a ship.”

“Are there particular properties of these – impressions, then, that makes it unlikely?” Hornblower asked; as they were talking Molly had appeared at his elbow with her tray, silent as ever, and he could not deny that he was taking particular pleasure in the warming strength of the coffee as it settled in his stomach, as though it could chase away the chill of an encounter with the dead.

“Peter could tell you much more about this, sir,” Nightingale said with a smile. “He has experimented extensively to determine how particular _vestigia_ remain behind in certain types of objects and places. It is the wood, you see, captain – wood does not retain a sense of the departed very well. The permanence of an object or building appears to determine, to a great extent, whether its history can be magically read. A little world made entirely of oak and rope that is destined to be destroyed and remade, therefore, seemed to offer little potential. A ship’s metal fittings and fixtures, perhaps, or her cannons, if they were old enough, might prove otherwise – but not her hull, not her walls, not her canvas.”

“But you have been sensing it,” Hornblower said slowly, carefully reading as he was the lines of thought in Nightingale’s face. “Have you not?”

“I have,” Nightingale nodded. “Even more so here than on board the _Temeraire_ , in fact; she had been laid up for years before being put thoroughly into action at Trafalgar. Here there have been hundreds of men, captain,” he said, and now his gaze wandered down to the _Lydia_ ’s maindeck, swept along it, and considered the gratings. “Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of men, and many battles. She holds the memories of much skill, and many bloodlettings.”

Hornblower found himself thinking of the ghostly captain again – some predecessor whose name must have been far back enough in the lists that Hornblower did not recognize him, as he knew the names of the two or three captains who had sailed in _Lydia_ immediately before he had been appointed – and found himself thinking, astonishingly, that perhaps it would not be so bad, if he were to die on this quarterdeck, to come back and walk along it for all eternity. Anything, he thought wistfully as he considered the same clouds the phantom had done, to remain a little longer at sea.

The phantom-captain had been correct in his analysis – the remainder of the day was one in which the frigate and sloop were lashed by sudden squalls of warm wind and water which threated to take both aback, what little sail they could carry shivering under the force of the strong, gusting breeze. Much of the night that followed was the same, but as morning broke on the next day, a Sunday, Hornblower was satisfied to see the low island of Corfu just visible by glass from the starboard side, and that the unpredictable weather was lifting in the distance to the west, leaving behind bright blue skies. He set them on the port tack, knowing that the next stretch of their journey as they wore their way north against the currents that sought to push them out into the Mediterranean would be a slow one, and then, his mouth dry with anticipation, summoned the hands to the customary Sunday service and reading of the Articles of War.

He sensed that the crew, too, had been looking forward to the occasion of him addressing them ever since they left Algiers – or rather, he guessed, since Styles had escaped the ministrations of Dr Walid and gone back to the mess with his wagging tongue. Matthews was a man Hornblower could trust to have kept the secret of the practitioners’ actions in the desert to himself, but Styles and the remainder of the hands who had been in the shore party had no doubt been spreading rumors like wildfire below decks for days; it was a miracle, in fact, that some insurrection or protest had not emerged to demand answers of Hornblower, for which he could only be grateful, and perhaps proud, for it spoke well of his crew’s discipline that their murmurs had not reached their officers’ ears.

The ship was hove-to and quiet as she drifted that morning, with barely a stitch of sail on her; the _Jaguar_ , likewise, was laid close by at pistol-shot, and Hornblower caught sight of Seawoll and his mate Stephanopolous standing at their ease by the wheel, looking themselves up at the crowd assembled on _Lydia’s_ deck. Hornblower read slowly through the biblical lesson of the morning, and took his time with the reading of the articles – it was not a habit of his to linger over either of these tasks, but he felt the portent of them this morning, and the sense of the dramatic which he knew would come into full force when he said what he had to say next.

“Men,” he announced as he closed the Bible and handed it to Polwheal. “No doubt you have been asking yourselves what it is we are destined to do in this part of the world.”

A chorus of respectfully assenting murmurs greeted him, enough so that he was encouraged to continue on. “We are here to harass Bonaparte’s illegitimate heirs in Italy,” he went on, “and to make sure he cannot use supply routes in Illyria to continue his wars in Europe. But we are also here to remove a great danger from these waters – an enemy as yet untested against the might of His Majesty’s Navy. We shall be showing him, with the particular help of our esteemed passengers, just what he can expect from one of the finest crews I have had the pleasure of serving with.”

The flattery clearly did them good, as a ragged cheer and an outbreak of smiles rose from the assembly; Hornblower, however, knew the most dangerous moment of testing their loyalty was still to come.

“In aid of this task,” he said, and the crew instantly quietened again, “we may find ourselves confronted by weapons, and by circumstances, which few men in this world have ever faced. Our enemy has conspired to harness otherworldly forces to do our fleet harm. In light of this egregious behavior,” he plowed on, noticing frowns of confusion spreading onto the faces of some of the hands, “we have been honored with the presence of scholars and gentlemen of our own whose skills will bring this attacker to heel.”

He turned sideways to look at Nightingale, who was standing calmly by his side. “Set topsails, if you please, Mr Nightingale,” he said, loudly enough to be heard by all.

“Aye aye, sir,” Nightingale said, and raised his hand, flicking out his fingers. Almost genteelly, the reef tackles of the mainmast and foremast gave way; as one of the hands who had been standing by them yelled in shock and leapt away, the stays shivered, and the topsails, unmanned and silent, unfurled and started to fill with the breeze, drawing the _Lydia_ slowly forward. Hornblower grinned, and looked back at Nightingale; Grant and May were beaming and looking very smug, respectively, behind their master as Nightingale, his demonstrative task completed, stood with his bright werelight pulsing over his palm.

“Witchcraft,” someone half-yelled from the crew, sounding petrified; he was quickly hushed by his fellows, however, who to a man were all staring solemnly up at Hornblower on the quarterdeck, as encouraging a response as he could ever have hoped for; from over the side, he heard a faint cheer rising from the _Jaguar_ , whose crew were no doubt more used to the spectacle of a magician’s powers.

“No doubt you appreciate the nature of our mission, gentlemen,” Hornblower said, nodding, speaking sternly so that his voice would not crack. “I expect every man to do his duty. Thank you, Mr Bush,” he finished, turning, suddenly very weary, to his trusty friend. “Have the officers dismiss their divisions.”

“I am impressed, sir,” Nightingale said as he closed his hand and the crew dispersed, many of them talking animatedly in small groups or staring up wide-eyed at the apprentices, who grinned back. “If only our fellow scholars in London were as easily convinced of our worth.”

“I cannot help you there, sir,” Hornblower said sourly, ever more convinced that he needed to rest his scraped nerves, “but I will always assert the fine qualities of my crew.”

“Of course, sir,” Nightingale said graciously, and Hornblower made his way down to his cabin, where he could contemplate an extremely strong cup of coffee and a steaming breakfast forced upon him by Polwheal in peace.

Hornblower was informed in the early afternoon that the Albanian town of Palaeste, based on the triangulations the midshipmen had made in the course of their noontime lesson with Gerard, had been sighted from the mizzentops; he was gratified that they were finally making some headway into the Adriatic proper, but as he emerged onto the deck a few hours later he found himself uneasy that they had not, as yet, seen any sign of the English fleet that was meant to be blockading the Illyrian coast. Perhaps, he thought, they had been driven into deeper waters by the storms of the previous days – perhaps they had given chase to the frigates, still unnumbered despite what Dr Walid had heard of in Algiers, with which the hostile practitioner was sailing. Either option left the coast unguarded, and he did not like the busy look of the shoreline, how each deep harbor they sailed past had at least one or two merchant ships anchored in it which he could not identify.

And then, at seven bells in the afternoon watch, he saw the fogbank.

It was immense, and thickly white, and moved across the water towards them from the west despite there being little wind to speak of, nor any reasonable explanation for why it would form atop the warm waters of the sea. It engulfed the _Jaguar_ first where she was sailing some half-mile off of _Lydia’s_ port bow, and though Hornblower and Bush thought they heard some distant calls bellowed through a speaking trumpet she was quickly lost to their eyes and ears; Hornblower could only trust to Seawoll’s judgment in being able to set a course for the rendezvous point they had previously agreed upon, some miles north of Apollonia.

And then the fog rolled in around the _Lydia_ as well, so thick that he could barely see the shapes of his men on his own quarterdeck, let alone any shapes beyond the bulkheads. The lapping and hissing of the water under _Lydia_ ’s keel seemed eerie, of a sudden, and Hornblower let out a series of studied curses as they traveled on, sailing by the guidance of the compass alone.

“Beat to quarters, if you please, Mr Bush,” Hornblower said as he strained to see beyond the taffrail, some half hour after they had entered the fog; its stillness was making him uneasy, though he could not particularly describe why. “I should not like to be caught out in conditions such as these.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“This fog is not natural, Captain Hornblower,” Nightingale said at his side as the ship wakened itself and the crew hurried to their stations, the rumble of gun carriages and the opening of portholes filling the air; the magician had emerged suddenly onto the deck, and sounded uncharacteristically uneasy.

“I am not surprised to hear it, Mr Nightingale,” Hornblower said, shaking his head. “The weather did not herald it. But I thought you said you thought it impossible for a practitioner to influence natural forces such as these?”

“I think it impractical and inadvisable, certainly,” Nightingale nodded. “But our foe already has the reputation of a man who thinks nothing of stricture, captain.”

Hornblower caught it first, though Grant, too, looked suddenly off into the fog over the starboard rail – in the distance, the sharp ring of a ship’s bell came drifting towards them, followed by muffled shouts that were certainly not in English.

There was a French ship nearby, or, if the _Lydia_ were desperately unlucky, she might have sailed directly, helpless and blind, into the entire fleet of Beauharnais’ marauding frigates.

“Silence!” Hornblower called, rushing to hiss down to his lieutenants. “Mr Bush! Mr Gerard! Utter silence below decks – the first man to make a sound will answer for it with the cat!”

The officers went quickly about their work, dealing out blows and hushing whatever man made too much of a clatter in getting to his station. Within moments, the deck was still and silent, and Hornblower himself stopped the boy at the log from calling the start of the first dogwatch. Nightingale and the apprentices made their stealthy way down to the maindeck, still looking in vain through the mist, while Hornblower strained his ears to hear more of his enemy as the _Lydia_ , as though sensing the danger she was in, slipped with nary a splash through the warm water.

The air itself smelled queer, Hornblower realized suddenly, as he stood tense and quivering near the wheel. It made him think of leather, and the heat of tempered steel.

“I know this _signare_ ,” he heard Nightingale murmur, the Latin phrase unfamiliar to Hornblower; the master magician was staring intently into the fog at _Lydia’s_ starboard side, and then he took a step forward and clambered up onto the bulwark in some strange attempt to see further, winding his arm into the mainmast rigging to remain upright.

Beside him, Hornblower saw May suddenly look amidships, as though something had flown across his sight from the water. And then, shockingly, almost incomprehensibly, there was the sound of a single, cracking musket shot.

A sudden bright bloom of blood was spreading across the back of Nightingale’s tan coat; he jerked where he stood and then fell, hanging awkwardly in the mainstays by his elbow like a netted fish as his staff fell out of his nerveless fingers and clattered, mercifully, to the deck rather than falling to be lost in the sea.

Several things then happened at once.

Bush leaped forward from the quarterdeck, a snarled curse on his lips; at the same moment Styles, who had been manning a gun on the maindeck, turned and lunged, his meaty hands outstretched, for the man who had fired the shot. It was a marine, Hornblower saw instantly, one of his _own_ marines, a young lad who could barely have been eighteen, who was standing stock-still with his division at the mainmast, his pale face blank and – and _empty_ , Hornblower realized, his offending musket still raised to his shoulder even as the captain of marines turned to shout at him. Neither the captain nor Bush nor Styles, however, were as fast as the wide-eyed Grant, who flung out a hand: and then the unfortunate, apparently ensorcelled marine was dangling in the air upside down, shrieking, the bones of his legs audibly cracking into pieces.

Hornblower, however, shocked as he was, found himself far more preoccupied with the sudden shouts in French which echoed out of the fog to _Lydia’s_ starboard side in the immediate moments after the gunshot.

“ _Les voila!_ ” came the cry. “ _Feu!_ ”

The invisible French ship’s broadside smashed into _Lydia_ in a concentrated, deafening wave, sending the carriage of at least one gun on the maindeck splintering into pieces and leaving the smoking cannon to careen its deadly way into the gunwhales. Blood spattered next to Hornblower from one of the unfortunate hands at the wheel as several pieces of rigging snapped and whistled through the air, leaving the mainmast groaning, and below decks Hornblower heard the telltale screams of men who had already been hit by shot or splinter.

“Hard aport!” he bellowed, leaping to the wheel himself and shoving aside a body with his foot as he helped the helmsman to change his course. “Mr Bush! Hands to wear ship, and send gun crews to the stern chasers – we will lose her in the fog!”

“Aye, sir!” Bush bellowed above the din, hopefully uninjured as well as alive; beyond the sound of his shout and those of the other lieutenants and midshipmen, in the muddied mix of fog and smoke, Hornblower just caught sight of Grant and May dragging the limp form of Nightingale to the nearest stair, stepping over the broken body of the mutinous marine.

It was a close-run thing. Hornblower allowed only one round of shot to be fired from the stern chasers in the direction of the French broadside – he was satisfied to hear that at least one of the balls must have flown true as the crash of broken timber floated through the fog – but after that, it was far more prudent, in their state of disarray, for the _Lydia_ to slip away quietly instead of giving away her location by continuing to attack. He hissed the order for silence once again, and Gerard, who was bleeding from his brow, hurried below to do what he could to smother the noise of the wounded and the frantic gun crews there; like a ghost, _Lydia_ sailed on, with the wind freshening her sails encouragingly, and the sound of the bustle on Frenchman’s deck receded further and further away over the next hour.

It galled Hornblower to flee, but as a second hour passed with no further sign or sound of their attacker he began to relax his restrictions, allowing those who were slightly injured to go below decks for treatment and ordering re-rigging and the clearing of the deck. Bush oversaw it all with quiet efficiency despite the perturbation in his expression; the midshipmen saw to covering the body of the offending boy-marine and keeping it from the crew’s sight as the gunners went about the dangerous, delicate task of snaffling the loose cannon on the pitching maindeck and setting it cautiously back into a new carriage while the _Lydia_ made her quick way northwest.

Hornblower came upon Grant at the entrance to the infirmary after he had seen to meeting with his carpenters and discerning what holes needed to be plugged in the _Lydia_ ’s side; the young man was worrying a knuckle between his teeth, and looked slightly sick as he avoided glancing too directly into the stench of steaming flesh beyond. Hornblower couldn’t blame him, though he was at least used to, if never comfortable, with the horrendous spectacle of the ripping wounds that could be caused in a naval battle. He stepped beyond Grant and let his eyes adjust to the lamplight, and was pleased with what he saw of the work which had already been done, as the surgeon’s mates went about their tasks – each of the seven wounded crewmen had been, at least to his eyes, properly treated, bandaged and sedated, and were swinging in their hammocks with only the smallest of groans betraying their conditions. The deck, likewise, had been liberally sprinkled with enough sand that the evidence of the doctor’s bloody occupation would soon be soaked away.

“Quietly,” Walid said from the gloom, and Hornblower saw that he was kneeling in his spattered apron over Nightingale, who, shirtless, was stretched out face-down on the surgeon’s operating table, his breath coming in sickening, wet gasps.

“Hold fast now,” Walid continued, and, with a look of intense concentration, he began to probe with a thin pair of forceps into the bullet wound in Nightingale’s back. Hornblower, feeling distinctly the worse for wear himself, took a quick step backwards as the magician cried out and jerked against the firmly restraining hands of the surgeon’s mate, whose brawny arms indicated he had been used for this purpose many a time before.

“Well?” Hornblower asked as he gained the doorway again, glad for the relative freshness of the air outside the sickbay; Grant only shook his head, and seemed unsure of what to say.

“Walid’ll pull him through, sir, I’ve no doubt of it,” he eventually said lowly. “But – with the bullet in the lung – ”

“What on earth happened?” Hornblower demanded, a spark of indignation growing within him at the appalling beginning of their misadventure. “Was the marine overcome by something unnatural? Something caused by the enemy practitioner?”

“Mr May and I believe so, sir,” Grant said, with a tight nod. “We call it a glamour. It renders its victims – suggestible, shall we say. And it is the mark of a highly-trained, unscrupulous man.”

“Not that we can ever be sure,” Hornblower huffed, “because your actions have left the boy dead, sir. We shall never know what influence he suffered from. And you still have no idea who this hostile practitioner is?”

He saw Grant’s eyes flare with anger at the idea that he should _not_ have lashed out against the man who had attacked his master, but his voice was still under control when he spoke. “I am not sure yet if I recognized the _signare_ , sir – the practitioner’s mark, the essential sense of his method and practice. When Master Nightingale is capable of it, I will ask what it is he was able to determine, but until then…”

“Yes,” Hornblower said gravely, looking Grant up and down. “Until then, and perhaps for the rest of this voyage, you shall be our senior practitioner, Mr Grant. Are you equal to the task?”

Grant visibly set himself, standing an inch or so taller with his jaw taut and eyes glittering. “I will be, sir.”

“Good,” Hornblower nodded, both weary and determined himself. “Then come to my cabin – we have much to discuss before we shall be able to engage this Frenchman again.”

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I never thought I would research for the sake of ficcing: the direction of current flows in the Adriatic and the history of thoracic drainage/chest tubes. Woof. (Still not going to touch the rules of whist with a ten-foot pole, though. *G*) Thanks for reading!
> 
> [I might be going quiet for a bit, as it's going to be a busy month with the holidays and other things - and I'm out of plot bunnies again. Feed the writer whatever you care to, I'm happy to consider all ideas.]


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! So sorry it took me ages to get back to this... hope you enjoy this part!

*

It was deep into the night before Hornblower had the opportunity to take up his own invitation to the apprentices, as he was distracted through the dusk with the tasks that would set the _Lydia_ to rights. By the time the maindeck was clear, if still splintered, the mysterious fog had started to vanish, though it clung to _Lydia_ ’s spars for a long while as though it had a mind of its own; soon enough they were gliding silently across an empty sea lit by only a sliver of moon, and Hornblower gave orders to set Matthews and his finest lookouts in the tops to keep a weather eye out for any sign of the French frigates and the still-absent _Jaguar_ before, with exhaustion hanging about him like a shroud, he felt secure enough to go below to his cabin as the _Lydia_ tacked towards the north-east.

He found Grant and May already there, deep in tired conference, with the remnants of a meal Polwheal had clearly snuck in to them sitting in haphazardly-stacked plates on one corner of the captain’s table; Hornblower was irritated at this presumption for a moment before he remembered himself and took the stumbling rising of the two apprentices to their feet to acknowledge him with the grudging kindheartedness it deserved, reminding himself to slip a quiet word of commendation to Polwheal later for his same consideration.

“Be seated, gentlemen,” he nodded, and Grant and May hurriedly did so, clearing away some of the scraps of papers and books they had sprawled before them, as Hornblower took off his hat and undid his coat. “You have assembled yourselves quite the council of war, I see.”

“We’ve done our best, sir,” May said. The grave condition of the ship and his master seemed to have drained all insolence from the boy, Hornblower noted; now he wore as dedicated and serious an air as Hornblower had already perceived in Grant. “Peter and I have been collecting techniques which we believe may be of use in a naval engagement.”

“Did Mr Nightingale not prepare material on this matter before your voyage began, or instruct you in the same?” Hornblower asked, genuinely curious, as he sat and cast his eye over the detritus of the magicians’ efforts, quietly sighing with relief as Polwheal, ever-attentive to the needs of his captain, silently appeared at the doorway to the cabin and immediately busied himself with preparing Hornblower a glass of his finest port.

“He said he had given the topic some thought,” Grant said, somewhat uncomfortably. “But it is not usual for apprentices to be educated beyond their abilities, sir. We had the impression the methods he used on board _Temeraire_ were out of our reach, as yet.”

“That will clearly have to change,” Hornblower said, shaking his head as he thought furiously through the mess he had been dropped into the middle of. “What have you determined so far, then?”

They were interrupted by a knock at the cabin door; when Hornblower called for the intruder to enter it was proved to be Bush, whose face was drawn with the same fatigue Hornblower was working so hard to conceal in himself; though Bush’s expression was further tinged, his captain could tell, with a worried distraction for the fate of his cousin, news of whom could not be far behind.

“The doctor, sir,” Bush said, confirming Hornblower’s suspicions as he turned aside.

“Well, Dr Walid,” Hornblower said as the doctor made his way into the cabin, still wiping his bloodied hands on a cloth at his waist. “What’s the bill?”

“One amputation at the left elbow,” Walid said, shaking his head slightly at Polwheal as the steward attempted to offer him a glass of wine, “three head injuries, and four operations to remove splinters, sir. One of those latter cases is very weak from blood loss, but in the main, I trust that they will all recover fully.”

“Very good,” Hornblower nodded, pleased at the idea that they had managed to come through their raking without major loss of life, at least not yet. “And Mr Nightingale?”

Grant looked attentively up from his papers; Walid’s face was grave. “That remains to be seen. The bullet chipped the fifth rib, and it is that shard of bone which pierced the lung. I have removed the ball and cloth which went in with it and sutured what I could, but I cannot guarantee his recovery. It was necessary to open a drainage wound to empty the lung and chest cavity – if that bloodflow ceases in the few days, and he is able to breathe easily, then we can have hope.”

“I see,” Hornblower mused. “Well done at any rate, doctor; I know it is no mean feat to undertake such a delicate operation while at sea. Do sit down, man, you’re making me tired just looking at you.”

“Thank you,” Walid sighed, and accepted Polwheal’s second offer of a tankard of musty water as he sat with a groan in the chair next to Grant.

“Repairs continuing well, sir,” Bush said; he was looking curiously over May’s shoulder at the assembled plans, as ever incapable of hiding his interest. “Your orders, sir?”

“For you to take your ease, William,” Hornblower said, summoning up a smile as he nodded at the final chair. “I suspect you will need to be as aware as I am of the changes which are about to occur on board this ship.”

There followed a long conversation, only half of which Hornblower could rightly say he understood, about the possible spells which could be employed to defend the _Lydia_ against magical attack. Dr Walid clearly understood much if not most of the apprentices’ ideas, as he asked questions about ‘forms’ and ‘orders’ and, Hornblower was interested to note, took on a quiet frown of concern which only deepened as Grant and May produced more of their findings. Despite the opacity of the general subject at hand, Hornblower was relieved to find that he understood most of their final conclusions: that they could experiment with methods of throwing fire into a hostile ship’s sails, rigging, or even down the barrels of her cannons, to set alight the powder there; that they could, in extremis, perhaps formulate the _aer_ incantation to put more wind behind _Lydia’_ s sails to draw her out of danger; or that, if major pieces of debris or weaponry needed to be moved about on deck, they could perhaps lend assistance with their magic to spare the muscles of the crew. There was clearly more work to be done, but when Hornblower dismissed the company he felt reassured that there was, at least, a plan in place for the apprentices to return to the _Jaguar_ once they had re-encountered the sloop and use the smaller ship as their testing ground, in order to keep any possible damage away from the _Lydia_ ’s men.

The apprentices went wearily to their beds, and Bush back to the deck, well after midnight; Walid, however, stayed behind for a moment, and Hornblower suspected he was about to be told of a complication which would do away with his confidence.

“I must ask you, sir,” Walid began, “did Mr Nightingale ever inform you of the restrictions that are laid upon his apprentices?”

“No,” Hornblower said, surprised through his concern. “From what do they spring – are they serving out some sort of punishment?”

“Not at all – rather they are for their own benefit,” Walid said, shaking his head. “The practice of magic is but little understood, captain, even more than a century after Newton began it, and it can have severe effects upon the human body when magic is performed that a young practitioner has not duly practiced and experienced to its fullest. If the apprentices are pushed beyond their endurance, I will have to insist that they be removed from duty. They are not like other men, sir, whom you might be able to demand service of so long as they are still standing.”

Hornblower, briefly offended, wanted to sniff that his crew would be pleased to be _asked_ for such service, but he sensed there was, as ever, something more to the implication that all was not as it seemed with the magicians. “What sort of ill effects are you referring to, doctor?”

“They depend on the degree of the transgression. At best, a deep exhaustion and bodily pain which can be remedied with food and sleep – at worst, a sort of apoplexy, a bleeding in the brain, sir. They will be rendered useless to you, and, more importantly, live no sort of bearable life thereafter.”

Hornblower suppressed his shudder, thinking involuntarily of his ashamed horror of the debilitating injuries he had been witness to since he was little more than a child, and of his own fear that he would one day suffer such misfortune. The sternness of Walid’s speech, and his obvious feeling for those under his care, suddenly felt more than justified.

“I understand, sir,” Hornblower said slowly. “You shall make it part of your standing orders to monitor their condition, and I will support whatever decisions you make regarding their health so long as the ship is not in imminent danger.”

He could tell that Walid was not entirely satisfied with this answer, but at least it was something; the doctor’s retreating bow as he turned to go back to his patients was respectful, and in his wake Hornblower was finally left alone to contemplate the coming dawn in silence and, eventually, a restless sleep.

The next morning they were nearing the rendezvous point they had set with the _Jaguar_ off the Albanian coast, and Hornblower was satisfied to see, as eight bells was rung in the morning watch, that the little sloop was indeed at rest, not at anchor but under very little sail, just off a ragged point with Apollonia visible on the distant shoreline. He wasted no time in ordering the _Lydia_ to be anchored and for her repairs and refitting to continue; as the day wore away, the apprentices and Dr Walid were rowed out by the capable arms of Brown first to the _Jaguar_ , so they could consult on practicalities with Seawoll and his crew, and then out again into the empty waters between the two ships, where they then carried out what looked, at least to Hornblower’s inexperienced eyes, like a stupendous display of magical power. They threw and spiraled balls of fire into the air; they manipulated water, to Hornblower’s surprise, dragging spiking waves and spray out of the ocean where it had theretofore been still and calm; and, if his eyes were not deceiving him, Hornblower thought he also saw them attempting to manipulate the air, first around their own forms, and then directing their efforts towards the _Jaguar_ , which bent and creaked as she groaned onto her side, her light carrying of sail flapping in a previously nonexistent breeze.

All of this proved an immense distraction, and no little source of amusement, to the crew of the _Lydia_ , who, when they were not being disciplined to keep about their duties, were skylarking in the rigging and tops as often as they could snatch a moment, pointing with both delight and awe at the parade of magical feats. The novelty, however, as with anything in life, dulled as the sun rose and fell and the work of the day sank into tired limbs and minds; by the time the apprentices came back aboard in the early evening their return was little remarked upon, and Walid was stern with his instruction that they should go directly to their beds. Hornblower couldn’t blame him for it, either, given how visibly fatigued, even stumbling, both Grant and May looked – but they were not showing any distinct signs of harm, either, and he went to his own cabin with a renewed calm, sharing a short conference with Bush to consult on the mysterious absence of the British fleet once more before they both retired.

The next day proceeded in much the same manner, though further out at sea, as Hornblower had decided they could waste no more time in searching for their fellow frigates. The _Lydia_ and _Jaguar_ tacked westward in unison, with Hornblower grudgingly admiring Seawoll’s seamanship and the delicate handling of the sloop from afar; when, however, the apprentices clambered back aboard, Walid, instead of following them below or going to check on Nightingale – whom, he had told Hornblower, was still very weak, but showing encouraging signs of recovery – he instead came up to the quarterdeck with a curious look of concern.

“We are being watched, Captain,” he said quietly, and as Hornblower sternly told himself not to demonstrate his alarm, the doctor casually indicated towards the stern rail.

When he stepped over to look at the _Lydia_ ’s wake, Hornblower at first saw nothing: certainly there was no hint of an enemy vessel nearby, which he might have feared, and the horizon was both bright and empty. It was a trick of the light, eventually, which persuaded him to look closer – in the gently-frothing wave left behind by _Lydia_ ’s rudder, there was a bobbing black shape, almost like the back of a bird as it might dive and swim in search of fish, snaking its way towards the ship. This, however, did not look like any bird, but rather like –

“Good God,” Hornblower muttered. “What is she?”

Walid, beside him, was also looking on with interest. “I am not certain. I encountered the goddess of the Mediterranean once, on the _Jaguar_ ’s voyage, before we were captured. This is not her – but it would not surprise me to know she had sons, or indeed daughters. We are currently sailing in one of her tributary seas, after all.”

Hornblower turned and stared, wondering whether he had finally crossed into the realms of madness. “A water goddess? What, man, like – like some ridiculous notion of Poseidon?”

“Poseidon gave up his position long ago,” Walid said, with a flash of amusement around his mouth, and Hornblower would never admit how close he came to cursing, aloud, the existence of all magic, magicians, and the infernal cheeks of men who followed them in that moment.

Hornblower looked back down at the nymph. “Must we – hail her?” he asked, despising how uncertain he felt and sounded.

“Not at the moment, I think, sir. If she wants something of us, she will make it known – I suspect we have merely aroused her curiosity. Thomas said he produced tribute to the mother; if it was peacefully accepted, any members of her family would be well-advised to cause us no harm.”

“Keep a weather eye out for her, all the same, doctor, when you can be spared from your duties,” Hornblower ordered, and turned away to take his usual exercise along the quarterdeck with relief.

That relief was not to last, however, as he was startled, while writing a first draft of a frustrating report to the Admiralty in the first dogwatch, by a sudden tapping on the stern windows of his cabin – and when he looked up, there was a face grinning in at him through the glass.

“Polwheal,” he called, his voice cracking, “pass the word for Mr Grant and Mr May.”

The call was carried onwards; Hornblower remained staring at the intruder, motionless. It was undoubtedly a woman, with her dark, wet hair hanging about her face, her features in equal parts African and what Hornblower would call Italian, sun-kissed and white-teethed. She was also entirely naked where she sat on Hornblower’s railing, so far as he could tell, and she giggled unashamedly at his obvious discomfort; when there was a tap at his cabin door he stood immediately and went to fling it open, pointing, without knowing how to say a word, over his shoulder to the source of the problem.

Grant’s eyes went wide, his entire expression opening with a puzzled delight, and he quickly stepped over to the windows, opening one of them to speak to her; her voice was low and chattering, and Hornblower couldn’t make out what sort of words she was using. May followed more closely, his eyes narrowed with suspicion, as Bush, who had clearly followed the apprentices down to the cabin as some sort of well-needed escort, spluttered at the sight before him.

“Not to worry, William,” Hornblower said, forcing cheerfulness. “I’ve been assured she most likely means no harm.”

“Most likely,” Bush repeated darkly, and went off muttering about how he had never seen the like.

“Captain,” Grant said brightly, and Hornblower turned to see the apprentice grinning, with the goddess looking curiously over his shoulder into the cabin. “This is Adria. Her sister Iona is nearby.”

“There are _more_ of them?” Hornblower said without thinking, and then rapidly excused himself.

Adria, whatever she was, made herself disturbingly at home over the following several watches. Though she kept out of sight of the general crew, she was constantly to be seen over the stern rail as Hornblower kept to the quarterdeck as much as possible, often hauling her sinuous sea-going body up to speak to Grant when the apprentices were not at their work, who, Hornblower was surprised to see, seemed to be becoming rapidly enamored of her, as though living out a tale of sailors being ensnared by mermaids. May’s mood darkened in equal measure over this same time – as Grant brightened, he became sullen and short, almost insubordinate, in his answers to anything Hornblower, Walid, or the lieutenants might ask him, and Hornblower watched with interest when, at one point, Walid took the blond apprentice aside to whisper to him intently, no doubt with a well-earned reprimand. He had no understanding of whatever feelings of friendship might have existed between the two apprentices, but he knew that jealousy was as destructive a force as any aboard a ship, and was glad to see that May’s mood ameliorated itself in the aftermath of this reminder of his duties.

That evening, with the two ships traveling well, Walid led Hornblower down below decks for the first interview with Nightingale that the doctor had seen fit to allow. Nightingale’s color was still ghastly, though there was a spark of life in his eyes; the neat bandaging around his torso was still stained with the remnants of the blood which had to be drained from him, but there was no sign of infection, none of the clammy skin and fever which Hornblower had seen all too often in those men doomed to slowly die.

“Captain,” he said, his weak voice hoarse with coughing. “I understand there have been developments above.”

“Your apprentices have certainly made various uses of themselves, sir,” Hornblower said dryly as he accepted the seat on a stool Walid had produced for him. “If they are not cautious, my crew will be returning to England full of the news that these waters are infested with mermaids.”

“They shall be warmly reminded of the task at hand, you can have no fear of that,” Nightingale said, with a hint of a smile. “Have there been any further sightings of the French?”

“No – and none of our own fleet,” Hornblower said, lowing his voice out of concern that the other sailors who remained in the sickbay would overhear him and quickly relay their commanding officer’s fears far and wide. “Excepting some freak accident of weather or grounding, I must assume at this stage that they have come to some harm, or been driven far from the coordinates they were ordered to patrol. Though it is hard to imagine that a gathering of some ten warships would be easily dissuaded.”

“In ordinary circumstances, of course not,” Nightingale said, shifting where he lay in his hammock and wincing with the effort. “But our adversary is not a man who allows for ordinary circumstances. I would suspect nothing but trickery and deceit from the likes of Martin Chorley.”

Beside him, Hornblower sensed Walid leaning forward where he stood, and turned to see the doctor frowning, thinking hard, his arms crossed and taut. “You’re sure, Thomas?”

“It makes the most sense at this time,” Nightingale said, shaking his head, and Walid let out a slight sigh of frustration.

“And this Chorley is?” Hornblower prompted.

“A man who believes himself aggrieved,” Nightingale said, his own irritation plain to hear. “You may think of him as a sort of magical privateer, Captain – a man who was never satisfied with the teachings and traditions of the Folly, or indeed with the entire system of English magic. He sought education where he would, from whomever would instruct him, and came to practice methods which were quite unacceptable to the Society. By the time any of us realized how powerful he had become, however, there was little we could do to stop him from taking his talents elsewhere. We have suspected for some time that he had become resident on the Continent; this particular manifestation of a ‘faceless man’ is quite in character.”

“And why is that?”

“Chorley never liked to be seen,” Walid added, cutting in as both he and Hornblower saw that Nightingale was becoming exhausted with the effort of speaking. “He always preferred to melodramatically operate from the shadows. Before he left London the word was that he was using his various disguises to forward all sorts of criminal activity, as though he thought himself a new Jonathan Wild.”

“A thief, then,” Hornblower said, growing angry, “as well as a traitor. I’ve heard enough to know he must be defeated, gentlemen,” he added, rising from his seat. “We shall continue our patrol of our assigned waters, and by the time we encounter him again, I trust that the apprentices will be prepared to do their utmost – ideally under your leadership, of course, sir,” he said to Nightingale.

“I share in that sentiment most heartily,” Nightingale said wearily; he descended into a weak fit of coughing, then, and Hornblower saw, as Walid moved to assist, that there was blood in the palm of Nightingale’s hand.

As Hornblower stepped out of Walid’s way, the noise of some commotion above decks made him look upwards – there was the pounding sound of many pairs of running feet, and a chorus of shouts, and then the canvas which divided the sickbay from the rest of the maindeck flew upwards and Matthews, knuckling his forehead, ducked quickly underneath it.

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Matthews said, his intelligent eyes flicking with interest over the magician, “Mr Bush’s compliments, sir, and would you please attend on deck.”

“What’s all that racket?” Hornblower snapped as he stomped up into the warm light of sunset; he instantly saw as he emerged that there was a crowd of hands clustered around the starboard rail, and, to his alarm, some of them appeared to be armed, furiously shaking boat hooks and even a jagged harpoon towards the water, jeering and shouting with rage.

“What on earth,” Hornblower spluttered.

“Sir!” It was Grant, with gritted teeth and wide eyes. “Sir, it’s the goddess – Adria. There’s a dead man in the water with her, and the men think – ”

“The men think she’s killed him,” Bush said bluntly from Hornblower’s other side, and from his tone Hornblower had little doubt his first lieutenant believed the crew’s version of events; nevertheless, he was quick to join Gerrard and the other lieutenants in breaking up the rabble, as Matthews cheerfully laid out blows with his rattan to get them to disperse.

Hornblower went to the rail with all speed, peering down into the waves, which had grown choppy, thick, and grey as evening approached. Sure enough, the goddess was there, her dark skin easy to discern through the water; at her side as she powered through the current was a large segment of floating driftwood, and upon it, the limp form of a man who had clearly breathed his last, with his head half-underwater, clad in the simple blue and white linens and oilskin of an able seaman.

But Hornblower also saw what it seemed the rest of the crew, and the apprentices, had not, and caught his breath at the sight of it: that the splinter of wreckage was from the stern of a ship, scarred with cannon and pistol-shot, and painted across it below the body was an unmistakable word.

He was looking at the last remnants of HMS _Thames_ , one of the frigates of the Adriatic fleet, and he suspected the wreckage of others would not be far behind.

*

**TBC**

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can think of Adria as Beverley! And miracle of miracles, there _was_ a 32-gun frigate called HMS _Thames_ active in 1807, though I'm afraid I don't know anything else about her other than that she was launched in 1805 and broken up in 1816. 'Apoplexy' is the pre-modern term that was used for stroke; apologies if Walid's sentiment about a sufferer not being able to lead a good life thereafter seems harsh, but my understanding is that long-term healthcare wasn't exactly peachy in the Georgian era. [Jonathan Wild](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Wild) was a famous criminal of the early 18th century who was also referenced by Sherlock Holmes/Arthur Conan Doyle.


End file.
